A couple summers ago, Mia came for dinner. It was hot, and I had no desire to cook. And yes, it does get hot in Seattle. Anyway, I made this salad, and Mia has long wanted the recipe. The problem is, it doesn’t really have the recipe. But in honor of temps expected to be in the mid- to high-80s this week, I’m going to try to recreate it here.

A few hours before you’re going to eat, chill a can of white beans or kidney beans, a can of sliced black olives, and a can of hearts of palm.

When you’re ready to get dinner going, chop:

a half a bunch of celery, leaves included

a heart of romaine

a cucumber (peel and seed if you want; english or regular as you like)

2 roma tomatoes

a bunch of flat leaf parsley

a handful of cilantro

a quarter of a peeled jicama

a couple peeled carrots (you can grate the carrots if you want — probably only one if you grate it, though)

a couple of peeled sunchokes (also called Jerusalem artichokes)

Toss it all together, along with the drained and chopped (if necessary) contents of the chilled cans. Add some toasted pumpkin seeds and toss with olive oil and lime juice, salt and pepper. You can add some grated pepper jack cheese if you want. If you want to do a creamy dressing, mix your favorite bottled salsa with some plain yogurt. Yum!

Change the black olives to Kalamata, leave out the cilantro and jicama and add a can of quartered artichoke hearts (or a jar of marinated quartered hearts) and some crumbled feta for a Greek twist. For a more Asian version, skip the artichokes, jicama, cilantro and lime juice. Use some toasted sesame oil, soy sauce and rice wine vinegar with ground ginger and a little honey or sugar for a dressing. Add some sliced water chestnuts, sliced almonds grilled chicken. If you have some ramen in your cupboard, you can crumble the noodles into the salad for added crunch.

Make sure the salad is good and chilled and well tossed in your biggest bowl. Serve with some appropriate bread stuff and you have dinner, no oven necessary.