Today, it's approximately 2000 degrees outside (around 2100 in my apartment), and I don't feel like turning on my oven or even eating anything hot. I think a salad would hit the spot, and this recipe from Jessica over at AllRecipes sounds interesting (and by interesting I mean "hmmm...I never thought of putting those things in the same salad").

It's the Watermelon Summer Salad, and besides refreshing, cool watermelon, you also get feta cheese, black olives, and sliced red onion. However, Jessica tells us not to be scared by the ingredients,. They work well together. Full recipe after the jump.

Although it is still cold in many parts of the country, temperatures here in Southern California shot up to almost summer-like highs over the past few days. The sudden heat has cause me - and many others - to turn away from hot soup and "comfort food" cookbooks and turn back to salads and other cool, light fare. This salad is idea for moving from winter into spring, although you could make it all year round, because it incorporates fresh oranges, dried cranberries and salty-sweet candied nuts, all of which are frequently used in late fall and winter dishes and desserts. These sweet salad components are on a bed of mixed baby greens and diced avocado. I dressed the whole salad with a heavily vinegar-based dressing (a citrus flavored vinegar mixed with a bit of oil, salt and pepper) to enhance the brightness of all of the components.

Who is making a resolution to eat healthier this year? If you are, Comfort Food Makeovers: Healthy Alternatives to Your Favorite Homestyle Dishes is a good place to find some better-for-you food ideas. Elaine Magee is the "recipe doctor" for WebMD. In other words, she is the one who makes over all the high fat, unhealthy favorites that users ask about into healthier, lighter versions that are just as flavorful.

The primary techniques that the book uses are using lower fat ingredients (low fat milk, light sour cream, etc) and simply eliminating some of the fat. The serving sizes are also slightly reduced, but the recipes usually have more fiber than the originals, which will help you feel fuller. The recipes sound pretty much like those you would find in a full-fat cookbook, but you'll probably enjoy Pecan Sticky Buns, Oven-Fried Buttermilk Chicken, Chicken Pot Pie Soup, Creamy Au Gratin Potatoes and Fudge Truffle Cheesecake just a little bit more knowing that they're better for you. Complete nutritional information, as well as information for a non-lightened recipe, is given for each dish.

If you have ever seen a Hot Dog on A Stick, the first thing that you'll note is the wacky uniforms that their employees wear. If you venture closer, you'll see that their menu is simple and true to their name, with corndogs, french fries and lemonade. The concept is clearly to provide fair favorites in non-fair locations, such as malls. A corndog is a corndog, but their cherry lemonade is maddeningly addictive. Unfortunately a 12-oz. size packs in 160 calories, and people tend to order the larger 24-oz. and 32-oz. (410 calories) sizes to wash down their salty snacks.

The company fairly recently introduced sugar free lemonade to their stores, but it's just not the same. After all, it doesn't deliver that cherry punch. If you want a low-calorie alternative to the cherry version, try the Minute Maid Light Cherry Limeade, which manages to deliver that cherry taste with only 10 calories in a 12-ounce serving. The difference between lime and lemon flavors, especially in drinks that have additional levels of flavor, is minimal. And the best part is that you can pick up a 12-pack at the market for much less than you would spend at the restaurant itself.

When Alanna sent me a note to let me know about a Lifehacker post on making low-fat cupcakes, I knew I would have to give it a try out of sheer curiosity. After all, Lifehacker is not exactly a food oriented site and to take a break from their regularly scheduled content to mention cooking seemed to be a sign that their technique was worth trying. Notice that I said technique and not recipe.

These light cupcakes are sort of a food hack (or a diet hack) using two ingredients: cake mix and diet soda. If you're not curious, or are so put off by the ingredients that you don't want to hear how the cupcakes turned out, you may as well stop now. Otherwise, read on...

While trying out light recipes is fun for those who love to bake, not to mention a satisfying way to know that you're not going to over-do the indulgences because the desserts are lighter/healthier than "normal" recipes, sometimes a boxed mix is convenient. For example, if you are at the home of a friend who owns no baking ingredients whatsoever, a mix with all the flour, sugar, leaveners and flavorings you need can come in handy. Mixes are also reliable, and even if you have a fool-proof favorite chocolate cake recipe, sometimes it's just easy to have a backup on hand.

The final reason to use a mix is that some of them taste good. And this is especially good to keep in mind when the good-tasting ones turn out to be fat free.

Summer is the season of fruit, since it seems that more things are in season than at any other time of year. Not only is fruit good for you in terms of nutritional value, but fruits can even help you lose weight. The easiest way to incorporate fruits into your diet is to cut up a large bowl of them and keep them in the fridge. A fruit salad will last longer than fruits stored at room temperature and, because they are already cut up, they are available for snacks and other meals.

There is no recipe for fruit salad, so you can include any kind of fruit you like. Melons and stone fruits, such as peaches and nectarines, are good choices and berries, grapes and pineapple work well, too. For breakfast, serve the fruit salad with yogurt and honey, adding a topping of nuts or granola for some crunch. This combination works well for a light lunch, too. Fruit salad can't really be the focus of dinner, but it can still be served as a side and provides a particularly nice contrast to smoky, tangy barbecue.

And for dessert? Berries and sweetened whipped cream still counts as a fruit salad, right?

Last week we looked at how to make some low fat oatmeal cookies that were just as good as their full-fat counterparts – not to mention that they are better for you. This week, instead of choosing a recipe that needed to have something replaced, as the applesauce stood in for some of the butter in the cookies, the recipe is a cake that already has a no-added-fat base. Basically, instead of relying on a richer butter cake base, this version of pineapple upside down cake uses a sponge cake as the base.

Reducing fats in baked goods is difficult, without question. The reason that so many recipes involve copious amounts of butter and sugar is that they taste best that way. Shortbread without butter is just a cracker and a pecan pie without sugar is just a bunch of nuts. Since baking is actually more science – a delicious science - than not, each ingredient in a recipe has a role to play, so changing them can adversely effect the outcome you are trying to achieve when your real goal is to indulge without expanding your waistline.

Fats in particular are important. They are important to dieters and they are important to bakers. Light Life, which is a new feature here at Slashfood, is going to take a look at lightened and low fat recipes, as well as at some commercially avaliable products, like baking mixes.

An article in today's USA Today discusses how dieters face many pitfalls when shopping for diet-friendly foods in the grocery store, because there seems to be some confusion over what constitutes diet-friendly, "health" food.

Notice that I said "health" and "diet-friendly," as opposed to simply healthy foods. This is because the article isn't about increasing the proportion of nutritious foods like fruits and vegetables in the diet. It's about how dieters who eat things like YoCrunch's fun yogurts fail to loose weight. YoCrunch is a brand of low fat yogurt that comes with mix-ins that include crushed Oreo cookies, M&Ms and Reeses Pieces.

I'll venture out on a limb here and say that the dieters who believe that eating any product with candy mixed into is a "healthy" thing to eat are fooling themselves. Just because the yogurt is low fat, that doesn't mean that the crushed-up candy is, too. And beyond that, pretending that it is a "health food" is just silly. Is a product like YoCrunch better than, say, a deep fried Snicker's bar? Of course, but if that's your dieting criteria, you might have to reconsider before you actually lose any weight.

Hungry Girl has a great roundup of some peanut buttery snacks that will still allow you to slip into your swimsuit before heading out to the beach this summer. Peanuts are an excellent source of protein and also contain a good amount of fiber. Unfortunately, peanuts are also quite high in fat and, as a result, high in calories. The serving size for peanut butter is only 2 tablespoons, and it has (approximately) 180 calories and 16 grams of fat. While it is healthy, it can also be hazardous to your diet, especially if you have been known to sneak an extra spoonful or two from the jar. Hungry Girl's picks all have a good peanut butter flavor and nowhere near the fat and calories of the peanut butter alone, so they're a great way to have a snack and get some peanut butter flavored goodness.

Her picks include: Dreyer's Slow Churned Light, Peanut Butter Cup; South Beach Diet, 100 Calorie Snack Bars, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip; 100 Calorie Packs, Planters Peanut Butter Cookie Crisps; Blue Bunny Sweet Freedom Supremes, Peanut Butter Cup; and Barbara's Bakery, Peanut Butter Puffins Cereal.

[Image Taquitos.net]

Technically, it's not Insalata Caprese, which is made with plum tomatoes and also has basil, both of which are grown in the Mezzogirorno. The original also uses olive oil that is from Sorrento. This is close enough. Instead of plum tomatoes, it has slightly sweeter, slightly less acidic orange tomatoes that alternate with mozzarella that is about the same size as the tomatoes. The entire plate is drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper.

It's also not really "light," since half its weight is cheese, but hey, it's still a salad!

It's "98% fat free." It's diet food.I know. I know, but sometimes you just have a tiny scoop of hope in the bottom of your heart that maybe, just maybe, this might be the one. This Klondike Slim-a-Bear just might be the one light thing to save your get-ready-for-Spring self, and taste good, too.

To begin with, ice cream sandiwches in general aren't exactly gourmet desserts, particularly since they are almost always out of a grocery store package from some mass-marketed frozen-treats producer. But I have a soft spot for them, I guess the same way most people have soft spot for something that takes them back to thier childhood.

These were, to be quite honest, not great, but not all that bad for being 98% fat free and 130 calories each. The chocolate cake part tasted exactly the same as any other ice cream sandwich. The fat free part must have been in the ice cream, which had the same consistency of ice cream that had completey melted then re-frozen. But if I think about it, I think that's the same consistency it was when I ate them off an ice cream truck when I was eight. I just didn't care as much back then.