Our house is an old Victorian.

What it has in quirky charm and great location, it lacks in efficient and effective heating and air conditioning. This time of year especially is when our house hums all day long as a patchwork of window AC units chugs along trying to keep rooms cooler.

It’s really hard to justify running the oven when it’s this hot so I’ve been looking for ways to avoid using it that don’t involve us getting a pizza or going for hoagies at Wawa.

One appliance that I turn to a lot is my Instant Pot. It’s a one-stop cooking appliance that doesn’t heat up my kitchen and perfect when outside is as hot as the surface of the sun.

The drawback for me: I’m stuck in an Instant Pot rut, using the same three recipes over and over. I’d love to know, dear Recipe Exchange readers, what are your go-to Instant Pot recipes?

Send them to me here at the Recipe Exchange: email jsheehan@mcall.com; include your name and hometown; and put “Recipe Exchange” in the email’s subject line.

Instant Pot is a great gadget to avoid heating up your kitchen when it's tropical outside. Send us your favorite Instant Pot recipes. (BestReviews)

Speaking of beating the heat, I’d love to share any recipes you all have for icebox or no-bake desserts. Who wants to bake in this heat? Not me.

Send your best no-bake desserts along as well!

Zucchini is the summer gift that keeps on giving. Keep sending those recipes. Email: jsheehan@mcall.com. (Dreamstime/TNS)

Has the zucchini fairy visited you? You go out to get your Morning Call from your porch and find a half dozen zucchini was dropped on your porch?

It’s happens to all of us, doesn’t it?

I asked a while back from zucchini recipes and I’m still receiving good ones. Here’s a recipe for a chocolate zucchini cake from Paula J. Ulrich of Allentown.

“I’ve been using this moist, chocolatey recipe for almost 40 years,” she writes. “It is a nice summer dessert which I usually serve with a dollop of whipped cream but others may choose to serve it with vanilla ice cream; however, it’s perfect on it’s own.”

Preheat oven to 350 degree. Grease and flour a 10″ tube pan (Bundt).

Combine ingredients for bowl one. In bowl two, sift together the listed ingredients.

Taking a third bowl, mix ½ of zucchini and the egg mixture (bowl #1); then add all the dry ingredients (bowl #2), then rest of zucchini. Pour mixture into tube or Bundt pan.

Bake for 75 minutes until knife inserted comes out clean.

Cool 15 minutes. Dust with confectioner’s (10X) sugar.

Note: This cake freezes well, too.