Cool Cucumber Salad - One of Many Versions

I have been making many versions of this cucumber salad this season. I pretty much just pick what's ripe in the garden and what's on hand in the fridge. This version uses the last of my homemade yogurt and is spruced up with some sunflower seeds.

• 2 lemon cucumbers
• 3 porter tomatoes
• Bunch lemon basil, diced
• Drizzle (maybe 2 tablespoons?) yogurt
• Fresh purple hulled peas - from 5 or so pods 
• 1 'not cayenne' diced fine for some kick (was a little too much kick - whatever those not-cayennes are they're pretty spicy)
• 2 roasted garlic cloves
• Salt, pepper
• Pinch sunflower seeds (raw)

Mix, chill, serve. Very refreshing after a hot day in the garden. Other variations of this salad have included:

• Diced celery
• More tomatoes - no tomatoes
• Summer squash
• Chunks of tofu or cheese
• Sour cream
• Ricotta cheese and hot sauce
• Balsamic and olive oil

The options are pretty much endless. This was a very tasty version, though. I just love how lemon basil is both lemony and basily in one - no need to add lemon or lime juice to things. I planted lemon basil once, and have never done so again - i always let a few bushes go to seed and they reward me with plenty of volunteers the next year.

Egg and Tomato Salads - Bounties of Summer

Today is the last official day of my venture in kid friendly, low heat recipes (thank goodness!) but i will have one more recipe next week that is sure to please most kids, and my desire to avoid processed foods. One of our few food vices are Morningstar Farms' 'chicken' nuggets. They're vegetarian and taste just like chicken, without the grease, nasty animal parts, or other questionable textures of real chicken nuggets - but clearly they're highly processed. So, next week i'll be trying my hand at homemade nuggets using ground turkey. One day we'll have our own poultry and goats to grind up into nuggets and sausage, but baby steps, baby steps: my first try will be with store bought ground turkey.

Anyhoo, today i've got two recipes, both utilizing my Summer's bounty. This is the time of year i long for all Winter! The time of year where i can walk into my yard, suffer a million mosquito bites, and enjoy a fresh dinner comprising solely of homegrown veg and herb. Since it's never quite the same, thrown together based on what is ripe, i don't usually post the recipe - but last night's dinner was just so yummy and beautiful i thought i'd post it. All the veggies can be interchanged to some degree, but what's better than freshly picked homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers??? I can't think of anything.

Summer Salad

• Freshly picked homegrown tomatoes. I used Porter Improved and Japanese Black Trifele (which tastes a lot like Cherokee Purple, very rich and meaty, but is way more productive. Always pick at blush or with green shoulders, and eat with green shoulders or they taste almost rotten)
• 1 freshly picked lemon cucumber. Could use 2, i only had one ready.
• Nice bunch of lemon basil
• Pinch garlic chives
• 1 small  red onion
• Several cloves of  garlic
• Salt and Pepper
• Cayenne and Chilly powders - could use fresh or dried peppers
• 1 cob fresh corn, boiled lightly, kernels removed
• Splash balsalmic
• Very light drizzle olive oil
• Optional chunks of homemade cheese, or feta or mozz

Simply chop all the ingredients - finely or chunky depending how you like it. Add vinegar and olive oil and seasonings and stir it up. I served mine with some pieces of sausage - mostly for the husband. I just can't get enough of dinner stirred up from Summer sunshine!!
This is similar to salsa, so if your kiddos like salsa you could chop all of these ingredients finely and serve as such, or just add cucumbers to all your favorite salsa recipes.

Egg Salad Plus

• 4 boiled eggs, chopped and mushed
• 1 very small onion finely chopped - may omit for kid friendly version
• Pinch of garlic chives, scallion, or one clove garlic - may omit most of the raw veg for kid friendliness
• Fresh Genovese basil, about 3 leaves finely chopped
• Dash cayenne
• 3 strips turkey bacon cooked and chopped fine
• Smoked paprika - hot or sweet, good pinch
• Spoon full of homemade mayo (which tastes very mustardy)
• Two spoons of mustard - dijon or brown
• Note: you don't need much mayo or mustard and can omit the mayo completely and just spread mayo on the sandwich bread for mayo likers
• Salt and Pepper
• Sundried tomatoes would also be really good

Cook the bacon to desired blackness. I added half the onions in with the bacon to absorb the bacony goodness and cook a little which both softens and mellows the onions. In the future, i may do this with all the onions as the raw onions add an in congruent crunch and a little too much zesty-heat. Mush all together and mix in bacon. That's about it! Will keep a few days so you can double the recipe to have more on hand in the fridge. We're going out of town this weekend, so this batch is for travel lunches or snacks on crackers. I love how brightly colored my egg salad is - gotta love those Summery hens - prolific layers! I'll miss those fresh eggs when they stop laying as much later in the season.

So, off we go to celebrate our first anniversary as a wedded couple! It's been a wonderful year so far, and i look forward to many more in the future. It is so wonderful to spend ones life with ones best friend: especially when he loves my cooking as much as he does! Have a great weekend, everyone. I'll be back to posting on Tuesday.

New Summer Series!

Apologies to those expecting my weekly Wholesome Wednesdays post. I'm taking a break, just this week, in order to announce a new feature for my blog: a week long series of Summer/Kid-Friendly Recipes. I promise that WW will return next week: with green beans! Their lovely, slender forms are just appearing around my garden - and being snipped off and popped into my mouth before ever making their way into the kitchen.

This is my niece, Raina. Isn't she just the cutest thing?

She may be adorable, but she's got one picky palette, and i for one would like to see her eating more than just sliced ham. In honor of the approach of Summer and all the kid free-time and the heat that entails: I will be using this next week to post a series of Summer/Kid Friendly Recipes.  Disclaimer: I do not myself have kiddos (though we might be getting a puppy soon!), and i live far enough from my dear sister that the screams of 'no way will i eat this, mom!' will be unheard by me. But i will do my very best to work around Raina's limited palette, with maybe some alternatives that suit the likes/dislikes of some other kiddos and parents i know. The main goal for me will be to write some recipes that focus on:

1. Seasonal produce
2. Responsibly raised meat products
3. Easily/quickly put together
4. Avoid using the stove or oven
5. Won't break the budget, and may easily accompany short Summer vacation trips

I've asked my sister to give me a list of Raina's likes and dislikes, and this is what i got (and it's not promising):

Likes:

• Black olives
• pepperoni
• cheese
• ham
• bacon
• chicken
• some spice - mexican or italian style
• tortillas (sort of)
• pasta
• not many veggies, but she can pick them out.
• apples
• grapes
• cantaloupe

Dislikes:

• mayonnaise
• miracle whip (nasty sh*t)
• veggies
• things mixed together (yes, i know it's ridiculous)
• and most other things are not under the Likes list. :) 

So how will i put together recipes that don't involve 'mixing things together' you may ask? I'm asking the same thing!   But check back in next week and see what i come up with, it should be interesting! Good thing i already have experience in "Maguivering" food together: my husband (then best friend) would call me on the phone with a plea of 'i haven't a thing to eat' whereupon i would calmly ask for a list of what he actually DID have on hand, and then put those (sometimes very odd) ingredients together to form something delicious. But we'll see - i'm not promising anything, sister! Let's hope at least one of the recipes that show up next week are something enjoyable to the little lady, or at least for the rest of my readers!