How summertime can make you a better cook

Ah, summertime. We tend to spend a lot more time outside soaking in the sun, and the kitchen can be a real hot zone. Both of these can lead to challenges in our meal planning and cooking endeavors., which can actually be a good thing, says indexed blog The Kitchn. They give us five examples of how summer can make us better cooks.

Since kitchens can get oppressively hot during the season, summer teaches us to be judicious in our use of the oven and even the cooktop. It’s a good time to dig out those small appliances, like slow cookers, pressure cookers, microwaves, rice cookers, and even blenders (for making cold soups and sweet drinks).

Another way that summer can make us better cooks, says The Kitch, is that the bounty of the season allows us to practice a technique or recipe until we master it. Buying an entire box of fruit at the farmer’s market pushes us to find the perfect jam recipe, for example, or making pie after pie until we get the flakiest, most tender crust. 

The same bounty can also make us exercise our creative thinking skills. Once the zucchini comes in, we have to find new ways to use it lest we get bored (there are only so many loaves of zucchini bread one can eat). The same goes for other vegetables and fruits like cucumbers, corn, tomatoes, and peaches, which “are at their prime in the summer, which means you have to get your fill of them now, and in every way possible,” according to the article. 

Photo above of a creative use for cucumbers: Chilled cucumber noodles with sesame dressing from The Kitchn