Cool Kitchen: No Oven, No Stove, No Sweat 125 Delicious, No-Work Recipes for Summertime or Anytime

Summertime Cooking Was Never This Cool!

Tired of toiling over a hot stove in the sweltering summer heat?Give yourself a break with Cool Kitchen. Serving up more than 125 recipes without ever going near the oven or stovetop, author Lauren Chattman proves that a delicious no-cook meal of White Gazpacho, Smoked Mozzarella Sandwiches with Lemony Olives, and Peaches with Ricotta-Walnut Filling can easily delight, satisfy, and impress. From Such delicious appetizers, soups, and salads as Goat Cheese Wrapped in Grape Leaves, Chunky Artichoke Heart Spread, Black-Eyed Pea and Smoked Ham Salad, and Summer Minestrone to sandwiches spread with wonderful walnut butter and apricot jam or stuffed with smoked turkey, fontina, and arugula and lusciously light desserts like Chocolate-Cherry Sundaes and Spiked Watermelon Cocktails, this book is filled with recipes that are deliciously cool and innovative--all prepared in little time and with little effort. Complete with menu suggestions for all types of occasions, from cocktail parties and light lunches to barbecures and romantic dinners, Cool Kitchen is sure to be a refreshing addition to anyone's summertime cooking.

Cool Kitchen offers 125 recipes that are enjoyable even when the weather is not overheated. Lauren Chattman has an inventive way with familiar uncooked foods like pesto, slaws, sandwiches, and fruit desserts. The brief section on pantry staples is a useful guide that will surely spark other no-cook ideas. She cheats occasionally by using store-bought smoked turkey and smoked salmon and purchased or leftover roast beef and chicken. Menus help you assemble 15 meals for various occasions almost without cooking. (One wonders who cooks the pasta for two of Chattman's dinners or the chicken for her barbecue.) Sure-fire recipes are Curried Chickpea Spread in a Pita, White Gazpacho, and the Rum Raisin Sundae. --Dana Jacobi