Cucumber ideas

[Sylvia]

How about juicing them.

I ran across this watermelon, cucumber and lime recipe that sounds yummy. I've juiced watermelon and lime and it was great. I'm sure adding cucumber to the mix would work well too.

[GLC1968]

We are calling 2013 the year of the cucumber! I have a tiny community garden plot that is producing nothing much besides cucumbers. Plus we are getting upwards of 10 cukes in every week in our CSA pick-up and co-workers are constantly trying to pawn off their home-grown cukes!

I haven't tried it yet, but I got this recipe from my CSA and it sounds yummy:

Peach and Cucumber Salsa

2 cups diced peeled pitted peaches (about 1 1/2 pounds)
1 cup diced unpeeled English hothouse cucumber
3/4 cup diced red bell pepper
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons apricot preserves
1 teaspoon chopped canned chipotle chiles*

Mix all ingredients in medium bowl. Season salsa to taste with salt and pepper. (Can be prepared 2 hours ahead. Cover and refrigerate. Stir to blend before serving.) *Chipotle chiles canned in a spicy tomato sauce, sometimes called adobo, are available at Latin American markets, specialty foods stores, and some supermarkets.

Makes about 3 cups.
Bon Appetit July 2003


I've also been making this cucumber salad in large quantities:

Creamy Cucumber Salad

2 medium cucmbers - sliced thin
1/5 purple onion - sliced thin
1/4 c mayo
1 larger clove or 1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 cup parsley - finely chopped
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
salt and pepper

Slice cukes and onions very thin (I used a mandoline slicer). Mix in a large bowl with the parsley. Whisk mayo, vinegar, garlic together and then mix in with veggies. Salt and pepper to taste and EAT!

[OakLeaf]

Mmmmm, that salsa looks good. But, another recipe that calls for more of something else, than cucumbers.

I'm going to call it the year of the Cucumis. I don't want to count my melons before they're ripe, but I'm closer to a successful melon crop this year than I've *ever* been in the past. Got five or six Charentais melons looking luscious, more small ones coming up. The vines are looking beautiful and healthy. Last year, cucumber beetles infected and killed all my melon vines before they even flowered.

I don't have a juicer at the moment, but I should make more vegetable smoothies - with their water content cukes would be a great base. DH doesn't eat pickles at all, so I'm just doing my lacto fermentation in quart jars, one batch at a time (and pickling eggs in the brine after I finish a jar of pickles, yum!).

Really bright side about making all these pickles - I have trouble getting enough salt from food and wind up either drinking lots of factory-made electrolyte beverages, craving pizza and chips, or both. (I know I could mix my own electrolyte mix, but it always tastes funky to me.) Pickles are plenty palatable to me AND plenty salty! Yay.


Come to think of it, maybe it should just be the year of the cucurbitaceae. This is the first year I covered my plants until they flowered - hopefully to repel vine borers - and, touch wood, I've had one borer hole (addressed, and the young plant survived), and seen only a handful of squash bugs. Those two pests between them typically devastate my Cucurbitae. Now granted the winter squash are far from mature, but I've got the biggest Blue Ballet (miniature hubbard) squash I've ever grown - the plants rarely survive long enough to even produce, usually I plant them just to draw pests from the butternuts - the butternut squashes are freakin' ENORMOUS - and the zucchini are doing what zucchini do best, going from pencil to ball bat in ten minutes flat ... Must've been something about the winter or spring weather that's kept the pests down so well, because my garden hygiene is, shall we say lackadaisical, and while I did do some things differently in hopes of keeping the pests down, it can't possibly account for the drop from awful infestation last year, to just a few individuals this year ...

[shootingstar]

Ok, this sounds probably typical of me.....but I promise they are 2 entirely different tasting dishes :

I slice my cucumbers in thickish slices (and peeled) and stir fry with onions and slices of beef with abit of soy sauce or hoisin. Of course meat can be omitted and mushrooms added instead.

I also stir friy butternut squash and it's delicious. See here. Very easy if you cube in 1-2 inch rough shapes... Most people can't believe this how squash can taste and no sweetener added at all.

[OakLeaf]

Okay, how about THIS.

One, 100 g cucumber, stem and blossom ends sliced off, chunked
Juice of one lime
Two teaspoons bar sugar, or one tablespoon simple syrup
Eight spearmint leaves
Three ice cubes
One oz vodka

Blend. Strain if you must. Drink. Yum.

You could leave out the vodka and it would be a plenty refreshing drink for anyone, any time.

[carlotta]

Three ideas:

Indian style spicy cucumber wedges (a Madhur Jaffrey recipe)
1 cucumber, cut in half lengthwise and into wedges 3-inches long and 1/2 an inch wide
1/2 tsp kosher salt
pinch cayenne pepper
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp ground, roasted cumin seeds
juice of 3/4 lemon

Combine all ingredients in a non-reactive mixing bowl. Toss to combine. (or sometimes I just sprinkle cuke wedges with spices/lemon)


Japanese style cuke salad-- toss cukes with sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, soy to taste (I add scallions if I have them, and sometimes either bonito flakes or crab meat if I'm feeling fancy and want to make it more than a side). Sesame seeds are a good addition too.


Smoothies-- one of my all time favorites is basically honeydew melon and cuke, tons of water, refreshing and not too sweet.

[withm]

Three ideas:

Smoothies-- one of my all time favorites is basically honeydew melon and cuke, tons of water, refreshing and not too sweet.

This sounds great - what proportion of melon to cucumber, and how much water do you add?

[snapdragen]

My kind of gal....

Another thing to do is make some simple syrup, water and sugar 1:1. Bring to a boil, remove from heat. Add a sliced cucumber and let steep for about 30 minutes. Strain and refrigerate. I'll put about a tablespoon of this in a glass full of ice, then add club soda. Vodka would be a good addition for a cocktail.

Okay, how about THIS.

One, 100 g cucumber, stem and blossom ends sliced off, chunked
Juice of one lime
Two teaspoons bar sugar, or one tablespoon simple syrup
Eight spearmint leaves
Three ice cubes
One oz vodka

Blend. Strain if you must. Drink. Yum.

You could leave out the vodka and it would be a plenty refreshing drink for anyone, any time.

[DebW]

I just made some tabooli - used up a big cucumber and 2 tomatoes, plus some fresh mint, cilantro, and parsley.