Our summer has been pretty mild. We haven’t had too many hot days, which has been a blessing for those of us without A/C. Unless you’ve installed it yourself, most houses out here don’t have A/C. Anyway, yesterday was a pretty warm day. And my kitchen was really, really warm. Even when it cools off outside, the hot air collects inside our house. We’re cursed!

Last night’s dinner consisted of stuff that could be eaten raw or that could be cooked way ahead of time and be served at room temperature, since it was not a day that I wanted to add extra heat into our house.  I decided on spring rolls. This time, I used cabbage, carrots, mango, green beans, tofu, and bean sprouts. The dipping sauce is the same peanut dipping sauce from Vegan Lunch Box. They were great!

Spring rolls are so refreshing and perfect for a hot day and when I was thinking of a yummy side dish, I thought of a stuffed pepper recipe from Fresh From the Vegetarian Slow Cooker. The peppers are stuffed with a mixture of jasmine rice, mangoes, peanuts and cilantro. Well, it was much too hot to make stuffed peppers with that, but I thought I could do a rice salad inspired by it. It turned out to be really good, and super refreshing.

(the sun is starting to set much earlier now, which is negatively impacting my photos)

There really isn’t a recipe for this, per se, but I will describe how I made it. I cooked up 1/2 cup of brown basmati rice in 1 cup of water. Allow to cool. Add in some chopped mango, some cilantro and some peanuts. Then dress. My dressing was the juice of one lime, about 1/4 tsp agave, S&P. Stir to combine. Yummy!