Simple Snap Pea and Radish Slaw

It really doesn’t get hot where I live until August.  I spend each summer quietly enjoying our temperate weather, often more chilly than some would like.   And so when we invite them to our house for dinner, we tell them to bring sweaters and then snicker about it because the idea of needing a sweater on a gorgeous 65 degree evening is funny.   The doors to our patio and several large windows  are open all the time to allow the fresh air in so it’s usually cool in our house — the way I like it.

The dog days have arrived as they always do, however, and this week we’ve had quite a bit of humidity with several days of heat.  Inland, temperatures at and over 100 degrees, and here, an uncomfortable range of temperatures in the high 80s.  If you live in the mid west, south, or on the east coast, I know what you’re thinking.  I know nothing of what you deal with every summer for extended periods of time — but I do.  I have been in Hawaii during the warmest time of year and tolerated the incredible humidity — barely.  We’ve been to Virginia in July when high temperatures and humidity were uncomfortable enough to make me vow I’d never venture there again in the summer.  Cape Cod was a lovely place to vacation — and although the humidity was much higher than what we’re used to, it did feel a bit like San Diego sans palm trees.  Palm Springs?  Check.  Las Vegas?  Numerous checks.  I’ve been to enough places in the dead of summer to know that my body was not cut out for excessive heat or humidity and the older I get, the more I notice my stiff knees, puffy joints, and an attitude a bit more edgy than it normally is.  I am grossly uncomfortable all of the time.

And so I live where I live for good reason — I only have to deal with it for a small part of the year.  I am quite thankful for that.

Preparing food in this weather is also uncomfortable.  Nothing sounds appetizing and a liquid diet of any kind sounds far better.  I drink tall glasses of ice water just to keep up with dehydration — something I seem to be just barely ahead of these days.

The hubster tells me to turn on the AC, but I resist.  I don’t want to use the energy.  I don’t want to pay for the use of that energy.

We should go to the beach.  We really should.  I can see the ocean out my bedroom window on a clear day, but we haven’t been down by the water for weeks.  Clearly, I am just in the mood to be contrary.

But there’s nothing contrary about this lovely simple snap pea and radish slaw.  It’s cool, crunchy, and perfect for a cranky person like me who just wants to stay cool and dry — a day to day challenge when you’re rocking middle age!

Go ahead.  Chastise me in the comments.  I deserve it.  But bear in mind that when you are neck deep in love with Fall and changing leaf color, we will still be trying to embrace the dog days of summer well into September.

Thank goodness for salad.

Recipe Notes

• This recipe was lightly adapted from one published in the August 2012 of Cooking Light found here.  We enjoyed this simple snap pea and radish slaw with a spice rubbed pork tenderloin and a new recipe for green sriracha I discovered recently.  I’ll share that one soon!
• I loved this easy slaw recipe.  I had a bit left over and so it went into the fridge overnight and the flavors were great the next day for my lunch.
• Use some red onion if you don’t have the shallots.  It will taste just fine in the mix.
• On grating those radishes — a definite knuckle scraping experience if you’re not careful!  Slicing them into thin rounds would actually be quite pretty instead of risking knuckle owies.
• If you don’t have those totally glamorous black sesame seeds (my BFF brought them back from an Asia trip for me) then the white ones will be just fine.  But definitely add them because they add a different bit of flavor and crunch.
• The chili oil gives the mix a slight bit of heat.  I was thinking that it’s pretty tasty, but will probably add some roasted red chilies to the slaw next time for even more heat.
• Wouldn’t a bit of cilantro be nice in this salad?