Beat the heat with ParentsCanada

In our drafty 100-year-old house there is no such thing as air conditioning. The kids plead for it, but it’s cheaper to send them to camp. Instead, the windows are wide open, the fans are whirring and the dog two doors over has been waking me up every morning without fail at 5 a.m. So I’m a little cranky. Here are some ways that we keep our cool:

• take advantage of the community outdoor pool
• take advantage of friends with pools
• get some friends with pools
• visit local libraries where the a/c is alive and kicking
• wash the dog outside in my bathing suit
• invite the neighbours over for an outdoor movie
• go to indoor movies where it’s nice and cool
• move more slowly
• drink lots of water
• let the kids have a water balloon fight
• do yard work in the early evening instead of in the afternoon sun

Your all-purpose cooking ingredient – yogurt

Associate editor Erin Dym and I recently attended a morning cooking class hosted by Astro Yogurt. I’m used to using yogurt in smoothies and as a cushion for granola, but I confess, I haven’t used it much in other dishes. And who’s kidding who, I don’t really cook much anyway, so it’s all Greek to me. Cooking that is, not the yogurt.
Instead, it was just 1% plain yogurt. In less than two hours Erin and I cooked up Tandoori roasted salmon with Biryani vegetables and coconut curry sauce, Cold Cucumber Avocado Dill soup and Nearly No Fat Fudge Brownies (which were sinfully good).  See if you find them as delicious as we did!

Janice Biehn

Editor

ParentsCanada