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My Heat Wave Survival Guide

Hello. C J here. It’s looking like it’s the start of another heat wave in the city here. While running an AC might be a reliable way of cooling a house down, it does also take a lot of electricity to do and not everyone has one. I just got back from doing some gardening with my family and although I was outdoors for an hour or so I’m fine. I’ve developed a ton of methods I use to cool down when I need to and I thought I’d share them here. They’re all recipes that are good cold.

Ice Cream
Ice cream is like the perfect food in my opinion, especially when made with the homemade no-churn recipe in Cooking With a Wolf. This recipe is high in milk protein, the vitamins in milk and can have cocoa or fruit added directly to it before you freeze it for extra vitamins. Really, I have a pint or two of it on hand at all times to cool down and also to eat. Just remember that it’s filling so eat it before a large meal to cool down with priority over other food. I might make an entire small Expansion of cards with just chocolate or fruit ice cream flavours on them.

Cold Food
One of the best ways to keep a house cool is to not heat it up. Avoid cooking things in the oven when it’s warm or sunny out and never, ever boil pasta if you don’t have to. Cold soup, cold baked meat salad, coleslaw, bread or pastry and seafood salad are your best friends. My favourite ice-cold savoury food is crab salad. Mince one package of imitation chunk or leg crab meat in a food processor, add in grated cheddar, enough mayonnaise to make it spreadable and salt and pepper to taste. Eat on crackers or baguette rounds. Technically it’s made of fish not actual crab so it will work in a card Expansion eventually as well.

Iced Tea
I currently have a quart of iced tea brewing. I use one quart of boiled water, two to four generic black tea bags and a ton of sugar. I don’t normally put milk in my iced tea. I oversteep it for as long as I can bother waiting then I fill a glass with ice and pour the tea in. You can keep a pitcher or two of it in the fridge for days but quite frankly the stuff I make never lasts that long. Again, it’s setting compatible.

Iced Coffee
This trick is similar and doesn’t involve boiling water. Make a pot of coffee and pour it into a four cup glass measuring cup. Add in sugar to taste and stir to dissolve it in the cold coffee. I wouldn’t do this without sugar. It helps the stomach digest the other ingredients. Add cream or milk and serve in glasses filled with ice. I can live off this stuff for days if I have to so long as I go heavy on the milk or cream. Add in a bit of cocoa powder when it’s hot before you ice it for a cold mocha. It’s great.

C J Mcpherson



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