How did I miss this in the bounty of onion ideas we’ve been sending your way? Hope you still have a few onions to experiment with.
Bread and Butter Pickled Onions
Cucumbers
Garlic Dill Pickles
Refrigerator dill pickles could not be easier to make. Last year when my garden was producing a huge crop of cucumbers, I made up the brine and refrigerated it. When I came in with my cucumbers-of-the-day, I would rinse them and put them into quart jars, add dill, etc. and fill the jar with brine. Tucked into the spare refrigerator to “ferment”, these pickles make half sours in a day or two, and full sours in a week. They’ll keep for a month or so, but really not much longer since they’re not processed. The nice thing is that you can just make up a jar or two. So if you want to give it a try, don’t worry about needing 3 pounds of cucumbers. Make up the brine and fill your jars with as many of this week’s cucumbers as you want to pickle. We’ll cross our fingers that there are more cucumbers in our future.
Cucumber Sangria
Let’s talk cucumbers. I’ve got two ideas for you. One drink, one pickle (see Garlic Dill Pickles).
From “The Deen Brothers Get Fired Up: Grilling, Tailgating, Picnicking, and More” by Jamie & Bobby Deen and Melissa Clark (Ballantine Books).
Serves 6
Cucumber-Corn Soup
And finally, how about one more chilled corn soup? This one will use your cucumbers, too. With all this heat, I’m searching for all the cool meals I can find. This one is no-cook, perfect for this weather and came from “Everyday Food” magazine. The avocado provides the creamy component for this soup – a fabulous raw recipe. You’ll have to rustle up your own avocado; they’re not an organic crop for this neck of the woods so we’ll never see them in our Riverview box. Unless of course global warming advances faster than we think ….
Smashed Cucumbers
I never get tired of just eating cucumbers like an apple but maybe you’re ready for a new cucumber salad idea. Smashed cucumbers are quite the thing. This recipe’s adapted from one in the New York Times which adapted it from a recipe from Superiority Burger, a vegan burger restaurant in Manhattan.
Cucumber Mint Water
Unfortunately, this is another one of those recipes that I’ve had around so long I don’t remember its provenance. But it’s wonderful, wonderful if you just have too many cucumbers to eat fresh. It’s lightly sweetened and enhanced with a little mint and lemon juice. It’s a take-off on the version Lisa Rochon sells at the Peachtree Road Farmers Market. You can vary the herbs – Lisa makes her cucumber water with basil.
Cucumber and Onion Salad
This easy recipe is adapted from one prepared by Seth Freedman, the East Atlanta Village Farmers market chef. It’s really a quick pickle and will keep in your refrigerator for up to a week, with the cucumbers and onions softening and becoming more pickle-like the longer they sit in the brine.
Cucumber, Onion, Tomato and Tahini Sandwiches
This recipe is adapted from an idea I saw from Whole Foods. Squeezing out the seeds and pulp from the tomato will keep your sandwich filling from becoming soggy.
Yogurt-Cucumber Dressing/Dip
I’m sharing two dips, one of which use cucumbers in the recipe. Both would work just as well as a salad dressing, but I was thinking of them as dips for fingers of fennel and kohlrabi, and disks of summer squash and cucumber. Green Goddess Dressing is traditionally made with a mixture of herbs and anchovies, but you can adjust it to suit your household’s taste.
notes about cucumbers
