** This post was imported as a part of my top 30 from my old blog – What’s Cooking in the Orange Kitchen**
For a month now I have been patiently waiting to find a ripe vegetable in my garden that is ready to pick. Finally, when I went to water the garden yesterday, I saw a cucumber through the big beautiful green leaves. When I went to pick it I was even more excited to find that there was another one just a few inches away! Every year I am always amazed at how quickly a vegetable will grow. One day you’ll see a little cucumber that’s a measly 2 inches and then the next day, BAM, it’s a full grown cucumber and that’s exactly what happened! We planted several different kinds of cucumbers and the 2 that were ready yesterday were an English style, so they were long and skinny. (We also planted a pickling variety so you can except a pickle recipe in the series!)
It really was perfect that a cucumber was the first vegetable that was ready because over the weekend I thought of a recipe idea and it has been on my mind ever since. This recipe would also be great with fresh garden tomatoes but mine are still all green, so I bought one from the store. Hopefully it will be my last store bought tomato of the summer!
So You Grew a Garden… Now What? – Recipe #1
Cucumber and Tomato Salad
Salad Ingredients
1 cucumber, peeled and cut into bite size pieces
1 tomato, cut into bite size pieces
1/4-1/2 small red onion, cut into 1 inch strips
2 tbsp crumbled feta cheese
Dressing ingredients
3 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp dry oregano
salt and pepper to taste
juice of half of a lemon
Directions
Whisk together all of the dressing ingredients. Pour the dressing* over the chopped vegetables and feta cheese, refrigerate for several hours. I dressed the vegetables in a Tupperware so that I could occasionally give it a shake and redistribute the dressing.
* I recommend pouring just half of the dressing on at first and tossing with the vegetables. Then if it needs more you can add more. Depending on the size of your vegetables you may need all or less of the dressing.
>Nothing beats home grown veges!! great salad!
>Our garden is producing massive amounts of cucumbers right now, and the tomatoes are starting to ripen. I'll try this, looks good!
>Salad that too from your home garden that means result of your own hard work, will be absolutely amazing.
>I can't wait until I have a big backyard to plant a garden in!!
>Gorgeous picture!