height-of-summer party food

height-of-summer seems like the easiest time to entertain, since assembling abundant produce can substitute for actual cooking (especially when accompanied by a grilled protein). we've been doing lots of entertaining and have many upcoming plans, so i'm looking for menu inspiration. some of our favorites include tomato-peach-panzanella with grilled marinated chicken; banh mi salad with tons of delicate veg and lemongrass meatballs; pestos of all kinds; fish tacos w many different homemade fruity salsas. since these kinds of meals are all about the combinations of produce and herbs, they can easily be maxxed up for bigger crowds (it's just a matter for more chopping, not of more cooking).

what are you guys cooking?

I don't know if it's my body craving vitamin C or what, but lately I've been making a lot of cold salads and dips like Chilean pebre (got a great recipe, available upon request), ensalada Chilena (tomatoes, onions, vinegar, oil, salt, and one other thing I'm forgetting), Italian panzanella and bruschetta --- and we're not even growing our own tomatoes. Last week, I even made a cold quinoa salad with diced cucumber, tomatoes, onions, and cilantro --- and I'm someone who NEVER thought I'd make anything with quinoa. I mixed the last of the pebre in it and it was even better.

Other summery things I've been making and eating: ceviche (another sign of my home-away-from-homesickness for South America), and variations on salade Nicoise --- bolstered, with respect to the latter, by some recent Guardian or Telegraph treatise on the subject that disabused me of any compunction to include green beans. Though, back to the subject of this thread, I'm not sure, given some of their ingredients, how suitable either ceviche or salade Nicoise is as a summer party food, i.e., something that might have to sit around for a while at room temperature.

I'd also like to see other people's suggestions in this thread. Lately I like Mark Bittman's "vegetarian before 6" idea. It's really no sacrifice for me to not eat meat during the day; I get plenty of it with dinner with Sweet Baboo. But then, true round-the-clock vegetarians would know better than I, but I suspect it's a much easier discipline to follow in the summer than in the winter.

P.S., like the bahn mi salad idea. I'd like to hear more about that.

We've come across a few suggestions to grill fruit before adding to salsa; the grilled pineapple salsa on the pulled pork was fantastic! The rest of the dish is explained over here, and you can bet your bananas we will be doing it again: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/jeff ... ecipe.html