We’re continuing to get Stuff from Mr. Gene’s garden. In addition to cucumbers, we’re getting squash and tomatoes. Lots of tomatoes.
Today I’m going to feature two recipes. One for a cucumber and apple salad, and the other for a cucumbers and tomato salad.
I know what you’re thinking–these combinations sound ghastly. It turns out that they are both pretty tasty, much to my surprise. I’ve even done a squash and tomato dish that turned out to be pretty good, but that’s for another day.
For the cucumber and apple dish, I used my mandolin to make apple and cucumber sticks. My mandolin has a guard on it to protect fingers, but I’m a klutz so I use kevlar gloves to protect my fingers. I purchased both my mandolin and my kevlar gloves on Amazon. In case I’ve not mentioned it before, I’ve also got an awesome garlic press. My latest favorite kitchen gizmo is a microplane lemon zester, all used in at least one of these recipes.
With these tools, the prep is pretty easy. For both salads, cut the ends off of the cucumbers, then slice them in half length-wise. Next, scoop out the soft interior and the seeds. For cucumber sticks, trim the halves so they’ll fit in the mandolin’s hopper, and put them in the hopper skin-side up. In no time, you’ll have perfect sticks. Core your apple and do the same thing.
The other salad is even easier. You still get rid of the seeds and soft core in the cucumber, but then cut the parts in half-inch to three-quarter-inch chunks. You’ll cut the tomatoes into similar chunks. We had ginormous beefsteak tomatoes, so I cut them in half first, removed the stems, then quarered each half. Halving the quarters gave bite-sized chunks.
The tomato/cucumber salad calls for sliced onions–another chore made easy with a mandolin. I used the thinnest setting, then cut the resulting disks in half, rotated ninety degrees, and cut them in half again to bite-size onion bits.
Cucumber Apple Salad
Equipment
- 1 Mandolin
Ingredients
Dressing
- 2 TBSP Olive Oil
- 1 Lemon
- 2 Packets Splenda, or 2 TSP sugar (optional)
- 1 TSP ground fennel or ground anise (optional)
- dash salt
Salad
- 1 Cucumber, cut into sticks
- 1 Apple, cut into sticks
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Zest the lemon into a small mixing bowl.
- Juice the lemon into the same small bowl
- Add the olive oil and any spices
- Add the sweetener, if using. You can add later after mixing the salad if the lemon makes it too tart.
- Thoroughly mix the dressing into the salad.
- Allow to sit about five minutes for the flavors to mesh.
Tomato and Cucumber Salad
Ingredients
Dressing
- 2 TBSP Olive Oil
- 1 TSP Balsamic vinegar
- 2 TSP sugar (I used two Splenda packets)
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 Lemon
Salad
- 1 cucumber, seeded and cut into chunks
- 2 tomatoes, cut into chunks
- 1/2 C Fresh basil
- 1/2 C Italian Parsley
- 1/4 C mint
- 1/2 Red onion, sliced thinly and then roughly chopped
Instructions
- Place oil, vinegar, and minced garlic in small mixing bowl.
- Zest the lemon into the same bowl.
- Juice the lemon and add to bowl
- Add sweetener and thoroughly mix. You can add more later once the salad is mixed.
- Add the dressing to the salad and thoroughly mix so that the dressing covers all the ingredients. It shouldn't need more sweetener, but taste it to be sure. Besides, it's yummy.
- Let the ingredients sit for at least five minutes so the flavors blend. If it'll be more than five minutes, refrigerate it. I don't recommend refrigeratoring it overnight, as the tomatoes and cucumbers will lose their liquid.
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