fast Archives - Joanna Anastasia

When the weather gets really hot I’m usually completely loosing my interest in cooking. I just don’t feel like spending time in the kitchen while it’s so hot outside. And honestly, I’d rather play with my girls in the garden, or lay and look at the clouds with them. But unfortunately, I do need to feed these little monsters every day. And they require five meals a day! ( I know, it’s horrid).

So I’m trying to find ways to cook less, or more of the no-fuss, super fast and simple meals. That includes a lot of grilling, some salads, and using some ready-made food (I know, it’s bad).

Here is my list of our recent favourite easy and fast summer meals:

Easy lunch : egg and avocado sandwich :

Rye bread
Ripe avocado
Boiled egg
Radishes
Cocktail tomatoes

Place sliced avocado on toasted rye bread, add sliced egg, radish and tomato. Done!

Fast and easy summer side dishes:

Grilling is my favourite way of cooking in the summer, but I usually get stuck in the boring routine of side dishes for our grilled meat. These my recent discoveries, 100% kid approved :

Fiddleheads :

Fiddleheads
1/4 cup olive oil
1 table-spoon maple sirup
1/2 tablespoon lime juice

Wash through fully the fiddleheads. Cook in boiling water until soft. Add dressing and serve. So simple.

Broccolini :

Fresh broccolini
Olive oil
Salt

Cook the broccoli I until soft, mix with olive oil (be generous) and salt. This is the simplest side dish ever, yet my daughter was licking her fingers, she loved it so much!

Fresh summer salad:

Romain lettuce
Radishes
Cherry tomatoes
Fresh dill

Avocado oil ( or olive oil)
Lemon juice
Maple sirup

Mix wasted and cut veggies together. Add dressing. Serve.

Chocolate raspberry cupcakes :

I do love to bake from scratch. But as I mentioned before, summer isn’t the time when I feel like spending a lot of time in the kitchen. So this lovely chocolate raspberry cupcake is actually just a cake mix with some upgrades.

Chocolate cake mix ( I used Gogo Quinoa )
Raspberries
Dark chocolate
Sprinkles

Follow the instructions on the package, pour the mixture in the cupcake liners, and place 3 to 4 raspberries in each cupcake. Bake. Melt dark chocolate, and pour over cooled muffins. Sprinkle with sprinkles. Pretend you made them from scratch.

And what are your tricks to cook less and play more during the summer?

When I have no real inspiration for cooking, and/ or no time, I do vegetarian saute , cause it’s so fast & easy, and if you spice it nicely, delicious. And believe me or not, but that’s how I taught my daughter to eat and to like broccoli ! So all we hear at dinner time is: more broccoli mummy ! And when she’s done with her broccoli we need to give her some more from our plates. I’m not complaining though 🙂 So this is the most basic , yet very yummy version:

4 carrots
1 big broccoli
1 red bell pepper

1/4 spoon of soy sauce
1 spoon of sweet chilli sauce
1/4 spoon of rice vinegar
olive oil
2 garlic cloves
sesame seeds

rice vermicelli

Start with placing cut carrots on hot olive oil, and after around 7 minutes add peppers, followed by broccoli. When you’ll see they start getting slightly cooked add all of the souse ingredients except for crushed garlic and sesame seeds, you want to keep them for the end. Let it mingle a bit all together, but not to long, cause you want your saute to be still a bit crunchy. It should take you all not more then 20 minutes. prepare rice vermicelli last minute before serving, and when they are ready place them in the pan with the saute so they can soak a minute or two in the sauce. Enjoy !

fast

Fast and easy summer recipes

Sweet and sour vegetarian saute with rice vermicelli