So it’s freaking hot. I mean, we live in the great white north, and last Thursday it was 107. In fact, we had 4-5 days of 100-plus heat and it’s been consistently in the upper 80s and into the 90s as well for the last month or more. It sucks too that there has been no rain, but that is another story. Anyway, it is times like this that it’s good to break out hot weather cool foods such as green salad with a protein, pasta salad, or cold soup such as gazpacho. But eventually you run out of options and get tired of these things, especially when there is no relief in sight for the heat.

Last night I busted out a creation I had in my head–the cool hummus pizza. And it was as good as the idea itself, if I don’t mind patting myself on the back a bit.

Here is what to do. Buy a ready-made ball of pizza dough, or if you can’t find any, pick up one of those tubes of dough you might find near the cinnamon rolls. Roll it out into a round (or square, whatever you prefer), brush with a little olive oil, and bake at 450 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until slightly brown (it might bubble up a bit, that is fine). Let it cool for about 15 minutes.

Then spread the crust with about 3-4 a tub of hummus. Top with sliced cucumber, chopped tomato, chopped kalamata olives, feta cheese and parsley…and if you like, some pickled hot pepper rings. Slice and serve.

I’m not sure what prompted me to call this sandwich “Spring Ahead Sandwich,” but I think it has something to do with the fact that it has a hard boiled egg on it–something that may often be associated with Easter or Passover. Anyway, I intended to make this a vegetarian sandwich, until I fed my son some slices of delicious-looking salami for lunch.

So that was that. I picked up some nice long sub rolls, and sliced one open. I piled it with lettuce, salami, sliced hard boiled egg (Trader Joe’s sells them pre-peeled in a bag), sliced kalamata olives, sliced sweet/hot peppers (again, thank you Trader Joe’s for this amazing new treat!). I sprinkled some olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper and dried oregano, and closed it up. And it tasted as good as it looked in this photo. Okay, so maybe I’m not the best food photog, but it still looks good for a Blackberry shot!

Anyway, give this one a shot or some variation of it. It was filling, but I did have to stop myself short of eating two of them. At least on that day I did.