Favorite, easy summer meals

What are your favorite, easy, summer meals? When the thermostat rises, we tend to eat less and I tend to crave lighter dishes with fresh ingredients. One of our favorite "go to" meals includes chicken lettuce wraps. They are a simple, no fail meal that always satisfies. I love to take a head of iceberg lettuce or bib, and these become the wrap. In a bowl I toss together some cooked, shredded chicken. I usually buy a rotisserie chicken and only use about half of the bird, reserving the rest for another meal. Then I add whatever produce I have on hand, some examples are shredded carrots, snap peas, green peas, water chestnuts, chopped cilantro or parsley, purple cabbage, diced celery. Just add whatever you like. Then to this I tend to mix in crushed peanuts, and for seasoning some fresh minced garlic, some soy sauce, ginger, either fresh or powdered, and some red chili paste, add this to taste. Mix all up and serve with your lettuce wraps. We dip ours into store bought peanut sauce! Voilà, dinner is served!

 I am also a huge fan of anything salad. Whether it be pasta or green, a great salad is so satisfying and can be made ahead to save time. Sometimes these even taste better the next day. A recent favorite is an orzo pasta salad that can be found on the chef Giadia De Laurentiis's website. It adds dried cherries, feta cheese and fresh arugula and spinach. With the crunch of some toasted pine nuts, this salad has been a crowd pleaser on more than one occasion this summer. I highly recommend checking it out! 

And lastly, a salad I tried last week was the following:

GRILLED CORN, AVOCADO AND TOMATO SALAD
1 pint grape tomatoes
1 ripe avocado
2 ears of fresh sweet corn
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped

HONEY LIME DRESSING
Juice of 1 lime
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp honey
Sea salt and fresh cracked pepper, to taste
1 clove garlic, minced
Dash of cayenne pepper

DIRECTIONS
Remove husks from corn and grill over medium heat for 10 minutes. The corn should have some brown spots and be tender and not mushy. Cut the corn off the cob then scrape the cob with the back of your knife to get the juices. Set aside and let cool. Slice the tomatoes in half. Dice the avocado and chop the cilantro.

Add all the dressing ingredients in a small bowl and whisk to combine. Set aside.

Combine the sliced tomatoes, avocado, cilantro and grilled corn and honey lime dressing and mix gently so everything is evenly coated. Be careful not to mash the avocados. Let the salad sit for 10-15 minutes to let flavors mingle. Enjoy.