With Spring here and fruit and vegetable stands popping up all over the place, I'm in the mood for some salad. For the first time ever, I've planted some plants. Hopefully this summer, we'll have a ton of peppers, lettuce, onions, and raspberries. Celia and Charlie had a great time helping me plant the seeds. Now I just have to keep them out of the dirt long enough to let my little plants grow! Here's a deliciously fresh tasting Balsamic Cucumber Tomato Salad. I used dried basil, but if you have fresh basil, it will taste even better!
Balsamic Cucumber Tomato Salad
Ingredients:
3 and 1/2 Cups Chopped Tomatoes (I used Roma and Cherry tomatoes)
1 Large Cucumber
1/3 Cup Diced Onion
4 oz Diced Mozzerella Cheese
3/4 TBSP Dried Basil
1 TBSP Minced, Refrigerated Garlic
1 TBSP Honey
2/3 Cup Balsamic Vinaigrette Salad Dressing
Salt (optional)
Pepper (optional)
1. Chop tomatoes and cucumber. Put them into a medium-sized bowl. Dice onion and cut mozzerella cheese into cubes. Add to bowl.
2. In a separate bowl, mix together basil, garlc, honey and salad dressing. Pour over salad and stir.
3. Salt and pepper to taste.
We are blessed with wonderful neighbors. We live in a quiet, little neighborhood and we have become good friends with the neighbors on all our sides and across the street. So, the other day on our snow day, our neighbor Marty brought us a bag of groceries because they were going out of town. I love when people give us food. It's always different from what I would buy and gives me new ideas for recipes. In the bag was half a cucumber. Normally I would just cut it up because Celia loves to eat cucumber slices, but instead I made a sweet bean salad with it. The good thing about this salad is that it tastes better the second day after marinating in the fridge overnight.
Sweet Bean Salad
Ingredients:
1/2 Large Green Pepper Chopped
1 Large Cucumber Chopped
15 Baby Carrots Chopped
1/4 to 1/2 Cup Onion Chopped (add more, if you like onions a lot)
1 Can of Beans (I used small white ones)
2 TBSP Sugar
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
1 TBSP Rice Wine Vinegar
Salt
Pepper
In a large bowl, mix together green peppers, cucumbers, carrots, onions and beans. In a separate bowl make dressing. Whisk together sugar, olive oil, and vinegar. Pour over veggie mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste. I was very generous with both.
