Fresh Peach Cucumber Salad

Fresh peaches that aren’t fully ripe can still be used in a fresh peach cucumber salad, adding a tart bite with a hint of sweet. An herby dressing with mint and parsley complement the peaches beautifully.

This week my Sunday Supper group are using peaches in a variety of recipes both sweet and savory. I’m in the Channel Islands right now where apparently they make no bones about the fact that the peaches are picked too young. The little plastic boxes they are sold in say quite boldly – Ripen At Home. But I think we all know how that turns out. They really don’t taste the same or ripen well at home. Never mind, though, because slightly under ripe peaches are still tasty in salad. If you are fortunate enough to have good peaches, those work too!

Fresh Peach Cucumber Salad

Aside from the mint and parsley, the dressing is a basic vinaigrette so if you have a favorite vinaigrette recipe, by all means use it and just add the herbs to the salad itself.

Ingredients
For the dressing:

1/4 cup or 60ml extra virgin olive oil
1/8 cup or 30ml good quality white wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon whole grain mustard
3 tablespoons finely minced fresh mint
1 tablespoon finely minced parsley
1/4 teaspoon sugar
For the salad:
1 English cucumber
4 peaches
1/4 medium purple onion
2 1/2 oz or 70g pea sprouts

Method
Put all the dressing ingredients in a jar. Close the lid tightly and give it a good shake to combine the ingredients. Set it aside at room temperature while you get on with prepping the salad.

Cut your cucumber lengthwise in half, then cut the halves again so you have four long pieces. If the seeds are too juicy, you can but them off and discard. (My dog loves them!) Chop the cucumber into smaller chunks.

Cut the peach off the pit in slices, then cut those into smaller pieces. If you have freestone peaches, you can remove the pit, then slice and cut.

Finely slice your onion.

Add the cucumber, peaches and onion to a large salad bowl.  Give the herb dressing another good shake and drizzle on just as much as you need to wet the peaches and cucumbers. You might not use it all. (It’ll keep well in the refrigerator for a week or two.)

Toss to coat.

Add in the pea sprouts just as you are ready to serve and toss again.

Enjoy!

Many thanks to our Peachy Keen host, Sue of Palatable Pastime and our event manager, Renee of Renee’s Kitchen Adventures. Take a look at all the deliciousness we have for you this week!


Starters:

• Bourbon & Peach Porkbelly Bites by Girl Abroad
• Cherry-Peach Bruschetta by Dessert Geek
• Grilled Peach Caprese with Blackberry Balsamic by The Crumby Cupcake
• Peach Blueberry Burrata Quesadilla by Grumpy’s Honeybunch
• Peach Gazpacho with Cucumber by Asian in America

Breakfasts:

• Peach Pancakes with Peach Maple Syrup by Magnolia Days
• Peaches and Cream Crepes by A Mind Full Mom
• Peaches and Cream Smoothie Bowl by Family Foodie

Beverages:

• Brandy Peach Lemonade by Nosh My Way
• Citrus Peach Sangria by Sunday Supper Movement
• Dairy-Free Strawberry Peach Smoothie by Cooking Chat
• Frozen Peach Margarita by Angels Home Sweet Homestead
• Peach and Blueberry Wine Slushies by Cooking with Carlee
• Peach Ginger Bellini by kimchi MOM
• Peach Whiskey Smash by Gluten Free Crumbley
• Trà Đào (Vietnamese Peach Tea) by Curious Cuisiniere

Condiments:

• Ginger Peach Freezer Jam by Peaceful Cooking

Sides & Salads:

• Fresh Peach Cucumber Salad by Food Lust People Love
• Italian Peach Panzanella Bread Salad by The Wimpy Vegetarian
• Peach Caprese Salad with Balsamic Syrup by La Bella Vita Cucina
• Peach, Tomato and Mint Salad by Our Good Life

Main Dishes:

• Chicken, Peaches, and Arugula on a Focaccia Roll by Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks
• Easy Peach & Basil Flatbread by My Life Cookbook
• Grilled Peaches and Shrimp Shish Kabobs by The Freshman Cook
• Peach Glazed Pork Chops and Stuffing by Life Tastes Good
• Pork Tacos with Grilled Peach Salsa by Baking Sense
• Roasted Flank Steak with Fresh Peach Pico de Gallo by Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Desserts

• Any Fruit Custard Pie by Wholistic Woman
• Biscuit Topped Peach Cobbler by Palatable Pastime
• Blueberry Peach Coconut Chia Pudding Parfaits by Cupcakes & Kale Chips
• Blueberry Peach Coffee Cake by The Chef Next Door
• Easy Peach Cobbler Minis by April Golightly
• Frozen Peach Cheesecake by Serena Bakes Simply From Scratch
• Gluten Free Peach Apricot Crisp by Desserts Required
• Grilled Peach Melba by Hardly A Goddess
• Honey Almond Ricotta Stuffed Grilled Peaches by She Loves Biscotti
• No-Churn Peach Pie Ice Cream by The Redhead Baker
• Peaches and Cream Cobbler Popsicles by Crazed Mom
• Peaches and Cream Pie by Cooking on the Ranch
• Peach and Pistachio Tart by Caroline’s Cooking
• Peach Sherbet by Cindy’s Recipes and Writings
• Peach Honey Pecan Galette by The Bitter Side of Sweet
• Peach Willy by Monica’s Table
• Roasted Peach and Lime Sorbet by Brunch-n-Bites
• Rustic Peaches & Cream by Cosmopolitan Cornbread
• Simple Peach Cobbler by Where Latin Meets Lagniappe
• Spiked Skillet Peach, Pecan and Blueberry Crumble by From Gate to Plate
• Streusel-Topped Peach Tart by That Skinny Chick Can Bake
• Summer Fruit Pie by Pies and Plots

Pin this Peach Cucumber Salad!  

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Speedy Salmon Tikka with Cucumber Raita

We were blessed in the last two locations to have our daughters attend two of the best schools in Southeast Asia.  Both ISKL – the International School of Kuala Lumpur - and SAS – Singapore American School – are part of an intercollegiate league called IASAS.  This dish brings back happy memories of hosting IASAS friends and players when we were living in Singapore.  It’s quick and so delicious.  I think the last time I served it was for a softball/baseball exchange or perhaps even tournament and we had a house full up to the rafters.  Along with a bunch of girls from JIS in Jakarta (one of them a former ISKL student whose mother also stayed with us), we had one ISKL team member’s mother, father and sister staying with us too.  So many people to feed and I was in my element.  But after working all day at the SAS Booster Hut, selling food and spirit wear with my fellow Booster Club moms, I couldn’t have a complicated meal waiting to be prepared at home.  This quick salmon tikka, adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food, was perfect.  

I made it again last night, but with homemade naan. You can find that recipe and those instructions here.  It was just as tasty as I remembered.

Ingredients

4 small naan breads or two big ones cut in half

For the raita:
4 medium cucumbers

1 fresh chili pepper

1 thick green onion

1 lime

2-3 heaped tablespoons natural plain yoghurt

Sea salt

Black pepper

1 teaspoon ground cumin

Cayenne pepper (optional)

Small bunch of cilantro or fresh coriander

For the salmon:
2 salmon fillets – about 90-100g or oz each

1 heaped tablespoon curry paste – almost any one will do.

Olive oil

In these amounts, you can feed two.  Multiply this as many times as is necessary for your crowd.

Method
Preheat your oven to 110°C or 225°F. 

Pop your naan into the oven to warm through.  Or, if you have time earlier in the day, make them fresh yourself.  It’s easy and homemade are so much tastier than the store bought. Again, complete instructions are right here.

First, the raita.  Halve your cucumber lengthways, and then halve it again.  Use a sharp knife to cut off the watery seedy part.  Chop the cucumber diagonally into about 1/2 inch or 1cm pieces.  Put them in a bowl with room to stir.

My helper and I share the inside seedy bits.  One for him, one for me.  Until they are gone.

Then he loses interest in helping and I get this face.

Finely chop your chili, cilantro and green onion.   Add them to the cucumber bowl.

Halve your lime and squeeze the juice from one half into the bowl.

Add a good sprinkle of salt and pepper and the cumin.  Mix well.  Now add the yogurt.  Give it a taste and if you would like the raita spicier, add some cayenne pepper and add more salt, if necessary. 

Slice each salmon fillet across lengthways into four equal slices.  Thinner is easier to accomplish if the salmon is slightly frozen.  

Jamie’s original recipe calls for skin-on salmon.  I choose to take the skin off mine by slipping a sharp knife between the skin and the flesh (skin side down on the cutting board) because 1. I find it very difficult to cut through the skin, especially when I am trying to cut thin slices and 2.  I like to fry it up crispy, sprinkle it with sea salt and eat it just like that.  Delicious. 

Spoon the heaped tablespoon of curry paste into a small dish and loosen it with a little drizzle of olive oil.  

Use a pastry brush to spread the paste all over each piece.

One side

The other side

Heat a large non-stick frying pan over a high heat.  Once hot, put the salmon into the pan and cook for about 1½ minutes on each side, until cooked through.  

Serve on the warmed or fresh naan, topped with your cucumber raita and a squeeze of juice from the other half of the lime.   We folded ours up like tacos and ate them with relish.  Do lean over your plate though, because these can get drippy.  

Enjoy!

Quinoa Salad with Cucumber and Purple Onion

The other day, I went to what is being billed as the largest book sale in the world. I kid you not, IN THE WORLD.  I don't know how such things are judged but I can tell you it was doggone BIG.  The hall was at least three football fields large and the tables were filled with stacks and stacks of books.  And I must confess that I peeked under the tables (looking for an empty box to carry my haul in) and found FULL boxes instead.  So I had to go back two days later and see what had been put out. And, of course, I bought more books.

Part of my haul:

This recipe came from one of the first day's books, The Conscious Cook.  I had been wanting to try quinoa and the book serendipitously opened to just the right page.  Really, this was not like the Ouija board in college.

Quinoa is an ancient grain from South America but, for those of you keeping track, despite my childhood time spent in Peru, I had never heard of it until a couple of years back.  Seemingly it is notoriously hard to grow outside of the Andes and The Conscious Cook has an interview with a man named Don McKinley, who finally succeeded in the US.  My particular box was bought in Carrefour and came from Bolivia.

Ingredients

3/4 cup or 125g quinoa

2 tablespoons purple onion (half a little bitty onion)

About 2-2 1/2inches of an English or Japanese cucumber (the long skinny ones without many seeds)

5-6 basil leaves

1 endive or chicory, separated into leaves

Sea salt

2 oranges

1 tablespoon white wine or cider vinegar

3 tablespoons olive oil

Salad greens (I used rocket or arugula.)

Method 

Cook your quinoa according to package instructions, substituting vegetable broth for the water.  For those of you with a small bag of bulk quinoa, without instructions, (you know who you are!) my recipe called for two times the amount of quinoa in water so I used 1 1/2 cups of vegetable stock. The instructions further said to put the quinoa in cold water, bring to the boil then cover and simmer for 12 minutes.

This is me adding the vegetable stock powder.  

Once the quinoa is cooked, allow it to cool to room temperature.  Impatient as I was, I spread mine out on a plate, and popped it in the refrigerator.  It was cool in no time.

Chop up your purple onion and your cucumber. 

Stack the basil leaves and roll them up and slice them finely. (Fancy chefs called this chiffonade.)

Juice one lemon and add to the onion, cucumber and basil. 

When the quinoa is cool, mix it in too.   Add salt as needed.

The next step is making a nice vinaigrette for the greens.  Peel your oranges and cut them in sections.

If you have any pulp left in the peels, squeeze the juice out and save it. Squeeze a few of your sections until you have about two tablespoons of orange juice in your bowl. Add 1 tablespoon of vinegar. 

Now drizzle the olive oil slowly into the juice and vinegar bowl, whisking quickly, until it emulsifies, which just means the oil is incorporated into the juice.  Add salt and black pepper to taste.

When you are ready to serve, drizzle your salad greens with the vinaigrette and toss lightly till coated.

Top with endive leaves and fill them with the quinoa mixture. Strew the orange sections around.  Beautiful and delicious.

Enjoy!

This lovely recipe came, with a few adaptions, from The Conscious Cook by Tal Ronnen. 

Venison sausage!

Good friends have you over for dinner. Better friends invite you to stay all night and serve you breakfast as well. The very best friends send you home with venison sausage and chili meat from the deer they personally hunted.  

The other night, we were discussing my attempt to eat ethically raised animals who were allowed to forage and act like animals and I was telling Greg and Carol about the farmers’ markets in Houston where you can buy such pastured animals.  And Greg said, “Deer!”  And he is absolutely right. You can’t get further from factory farming than hunting for your own wild meat.   The deer was processed by some local folks in Katy, who turn it into a variety of cuts, including sausage.  I think they are culinary geniuses.

Tonight I am simply pan-frying one package of four wonderful links of smoked venison sausage. I have been cutting off small pieces for tasting and it is delicious! Smokey and spicy and full of flavor!

I will have mine with leftover mashed potatoes.  Cecilie has chosen Buitoni Light Four Cheese Ravioli to accompany hers. We will both enjoy a fresh cucumber salad, made from the cucumbers I got in my most recent Share basket from Central City Coop.  Twenty-three dollars (if you pay online with Paypal) will get you this from nearby Gundermann Farm.

Grace Lutheran church at 2515 Waugh Street

Cucumber Salad

Simplest recipe ever.  Peel the cucumber if the skin is a bit thick, otherwise, just give it a scrub. Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise and scrap the seeds out with a teaspoon. Cut each half in half again lengthwise. Then cut the long pieces into moon shapes about 1/4 inch thick. Sprinkle with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, white balsamic vinegar and good extra virgin olive oil.  Give it a stir and eat!

Thanks again to the Nutters!  I will think fond thoughts of you all with every delectable bite.