Cooler Than A Cucumber

Can you believe it?!  This is my first post during the afternoon in over a week.  Work has slowed down just a bit today and it's nice.  I actually got more than 20 minutes for lunch today.  *sigh*  I didn't even know what to do with all the time.  You mean I actually get to *sit* and *chew* my food today?  Nice.  I'm sure it'll back to the norm tomorrow, but I'm not going to think about that right now.  And, of course, I don't have all the pics I need on my flash drive, so I guess this post will be postponed until after I get home this evening. 

I'm a little behind on prepping pics and such, so today you get a recipe that I've tucked back in the back and almost forgot about.  I don't know why because it was really good.  I came upon this recipe after the MIL gave us two HUGE cucumbers out of her garden.  I don't mind cucumbers, but I had no idea what to do with two biggens, so away to Allrecipes I went. 

Zippy Cucumber Salad
2 large seedless cucumbers, sliced thin
1 large sweet onion, halved and sliced thin
1 tsp salt
1 large jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
1/4 cup minced carrot
1/3 cup rice vinegar
1 tsp ground ginger
5 tsp white sugar
1/4 tsp coarse ground black pepper

Use a vegetable peeler to peel stripes in the cucumbers leaving half the skin. Halve the cucumbers lengthwise. Use spoon to remove the seeds from the cucumber halves. Slice the halves thinly. 

Place the cucumber, onion, and 2 teaspoons salt in a bowl with enough water to cover; allow to marinate in refrigerator at least 30 minutes. Drain thoroughly in a colander and transfer to a large bowl; add the jalapeno pepper and carrot to the mixture. 

Stir the rice vinegar, ginger, sugar, and pepper together in a small bowl until the sugar is completely dissolved; pour over the cucumber mixture and stir to evenly coat. Cover with plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator at least 30 minutes. 

NOTES:  The cucumbers we had were not seedless, nor did I remove the seeds.  I don't really get the point of this, but whatev.  I was afraid that seeding a jalapeno would be hard, but it wasn't.  Just be sure to wear disposable gloves so you don't accidentally rub your eyes after you finish seeding it.

I think I've had that bottle of rice vinegar for years!  And I think I finally used all of it.  Instead of one large jalapeno, I used 2 medium.  I didn't think this was spicy at all (and no, Mom, it's not because I live in NM). 

I know there's probably some fancy cucumber peeler thingamajig, but I just used a regular old shucker (that's what Nate calls it <3 ).

Did you know that the seeds and the inner fleshy part of the jalapeno is actually where it gets its heat?  If you want to kick it up a notch, leave some of the seeds in.  I wasn't sure how spicy it would be with two peppers, so I didn't include any seeds.

All set to marinade in the fridge.  As you can probably tell, I gave up thinly slicing the onions.  Instead I did small chunks (bigger than mincing, smaller than cubes).  It didn't make any difference as far as I could tell.

I almost forgot until I saw this picture!  I added some pre-cooked bacon pieces to the finished salad.  I'm not 100% sold on cucumbers, but I liked this salad.  A little sweet, a little tangy - it reminded me of bread & butter pickles.


Time to go make dinner!  And wouldn't you know it?  I left my offending flash drive at work tonight.  Good thing I have another one (now I just have to find it).  Have a good evening.  I'll catch up with everybody tomorrow.


Listening: The Electric Company
Mood: done