Another cucumber salad

I'm not eating the homegrown cucumbers nearly fast enough. I'm worried I'll lose them to the ravages of time. 

But seriously, cucumbers are one of my favorite summer foods. They don't provide nearly the same feeling in winter. The cool flavor, the burst of water in each bite... They provide relief in summer.

Since a friend was kind enough to share her garden bounty, I have three large cucumbers. I've grown cucumbers, but this year my tortoise ate all the plants. She likes cucumber, too.

So to make sure we eat these beautiful vegetables, I made a cucumber salad. And it's vegan!

Ingredients:

- 3 large cucumbers, diced

- 4 slices vegetarian bacon-style strips, cut into tiny bits

- about 3/4 cup black olives, sliced (i used canned whole olives and sliced them myself but I *really* wish I had good olives on hand)

- about 1/2 cup flax seed

- garlic pepper to taste

- Annie's lemon chive dressing, to taste 

(I kept both the dressing and the garlic pepper to a minimum since I want the cucumbers to keep their clean, fresh taste.)

Mix. Chill. Serve.

Lemony pickles

We started making pickles today with a new recipe and I noticed it called for fermenting the cukes first.

That's not happening.

So while trying to find another recipe for my salted cukes, I was reminded that a pickling brined is equal parts water and whatever vinegar you like.

Based on my recipe research, I sliced my seven small pickling cucumbers into coins and added sliced lemon.

I boiled a mix of sugar, apple cider vinegar, water, strawberry basil balsamic vinegar, garlic pepper and lemon thyme from my garden.

Corn Salsa

Today we're adapting the Better Homes and Gardens recipe for corn salsa. I tasted a few corn kernels and it is divine.

The BHG recipe calls for:
- 4 large ears corn/2 cups
- 1 large onion/ 1 cup (coarsely chopped)
- 1 large green or red sweet pepper / 1 cup (coarsely chopped)
- 1 cup coarsely chopped peeled tomato
- 1 fresh jalapeño pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped

For my mix I used:
- 3 cups corn from a local farm
- about 1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
- 2 tablespoons diced chives from the garden
- 2 (or was it 3) pickling cucumbers (chopped)
- 1 cup and then some chopped tomatoes from a neighbor's garden
- 1 small green pepper and one really small red pepper from my own garden, chopped

For the sauce:
The original BHG
- 1/2 cup lime juice
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

To this I added:
- 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon local honey
- 1/2 teaspoon hot chili powder

Method:
In large saucepan, combine ingredients and bring them to a boil.

Simmer, covered, for ten minutes.

Ladle into half pint jars. (oh bugger! I did 1 half pint, 2 half jellies and a pint.)

Process jars 15 minutes in boiling water canner.

Spicy pickles

I started some pickle liquid this morning making this into my brine:
- Ball dill pickle mix
- Indian chili pepper (powder)
- crushed red pepper
- white vinegar
- a few splashes apple cider vinegar
- water

For the "pickles"
- 4 medium pickling cucumbers (from my garden)
- 1 spicy pepper (from my garden)
- 1/2 a large red onion

Time to pickle

We had one huge pickling cucumber so we picked it and got out our canning equipment. Since we don't have enough cucumber, we're also pickling some carrots from Klein Farm.

Last summer, I was given some Ball dill pickle seasoning mix so I'm trying it, using apple cider vinegar as the base.

The tomatoes in the garden aren't getting red. Two of my peppers don't seem to be getting bigger and despite bees in all the flowers, my cantaloupe is looking like a dud.

But all my pickling cucumber plants, both in the ground and in pots, are going crazy. My corn has some new growth.

And i found a pepper plant I had forgotten about struggling for air next to the crazy sorrel.

Parties, cakes & cukes

More work in the garden today, planting another batch of peas and the sole watermelon seedling that survived.

Yesterday was child's birthday so we ate lots of cake, saw lots of friends and got presents-- which included seeds for a butterfly garden. We planted that today too.

We had one locally grown cucumber left so we are making sun pickles. Child cut the cuke, we nabbed dill from the garden and we shoved them into a pint mason jar. I splashed in less than 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar and filled the rest of the jar with water. We gave it a good shake and child set it in the sun.

Quick cucumber salad

It's 90 degrees at the sun has not abated. I wanted something quick and cool since I was low on time and high on the heat.

INGREDIENTS
- 1/2 cup store bought spinach dip
- 1 farmers market cucumber diced extremely tiny for my healing mouth
- about 1/4 cup bacon pieces (not bits, real pieces of bacon)

Stir and eat plain or in a wrap. Or with chicken salad. Or on crackers. Or with garden grown lettuce.

I liked it better plain than on a wrap. The wrap included some shredded mozzarella and Parmesan for added protein. Really didn't add anything.

I also had a side of leftover rice with spicy teriyaki sauce.