From the moment the temperatures heat up, my desire to cook and create recipes falls to the wayside. This appears to be especially true this summer since our tiny New York City apartment feels hot as hell, even with a window air conditioning unit.
My normal "it's too hot to cook" stand-by recipes like tofu scramble with garden vegetables, hawaiian bbq teriyaki chickpeas , salsa chickpea lettuce wraps and portobello steaks have also become undesirable since they involve using the stove and standing over an open flame when its 90 degrees isn't going to happen. So, we've been eating a lot of salads and HH's mock tuna .
But even with the summer heat I still want cooked food from time to time, so I've been making use of my appliances: baking in my toaster oven and using my rice cooker and steamer to do all my other "cooking."
This recipe is a great example of that. I borrowed the flavors and ingredients from my Aztec Corn Soup and turned it into a slightly chilled summer salad. It's really easy to make and quite delicious. I cooked my quinoa in my rice cooker (on the white rice setting) and steamed fresh corn in my steamer.