Cucumber Salad with Lemon Basil Vinaigrette

Lemon and basil Cucumber Salad

Lemon and basil Cucumber Salad

I have a confession to make, sometimes I make salad when I don’t want to cook a side—okay maybe I do that more than sometimes, I do it a lot. There is a reason I named this blog lazy girl dinners.  This salad is a result of me being lazy and needing to use the ingredients I had on hand.  It was a hit with both my husband and my daughter.  It was the first time I got her to eat cucumber without chewing it up and spitting it out. Slicing them with my spiral vegetable slicer had everything to do with that because when it comes to getting her to eat something, it always comes down to texture.

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Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: none

Total time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

2 large cucumbers sliced thinly

4 tablespoons of lemon juice

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 tablespoon of fresh basil, finely chopped

Sea Salt to taste

Directions:

Add the lemon juice, olive oil, sea salt, and basil to a small bowl and whisk together. Spoon as much of the viniagrette as you’d like over a serving of the cucumbers and enjoy!Note: If you are serving this at a dinner party–yes it’s lazy but it’s elegant and very delicious–then be sure to spoon the vinaigrette over the salad just before serving, otherwise the cucumbers will loose their crunch and get soggy.

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Persian Cucumber and Tomato Salad

Persian Cucumber and Tomato Salad

Persian Cucumber and Tomato Salad

My daughter has reached a turning point in eating! I have a feeling it has a lot to do with the fact that she her 2 year molars are coming in, which makes things easier to chew. But in the last few weeks we’ve seen a change in her mindset too. She’s taken to saying “to eat is good for you?” Or insert name of food item “is good for you?” If we say yes, then she eats it! I feel like I’ve struck the mommy lotto because now things she wouldn’t consider eating, she’s now eating, all because we say it’s good for her. One of the things I have been trying to get her to eat, but she never would, is cucumbers. It has been a complete over night shift! She wouldn’t touch them before, but now she loves them because they’re good for her. She also loves tomatoes, this Persian salad is one of my favorite salads to order when we go out for Persian food. So I thought I’d try it out on her and of course she loved it! I’m not a big fan of onions in my salads, because they tend to over power the rest of the ingredients in a salad. I don’t know where I learned this tip, but soaking the onions in water before adding them to things, mellows the onions a bit. I let them sit for 5-10 minutes and drain them before adding them to my salad, the onions still have flavor, but less of a “oh my god I just ate a raw onion” bite! I prefer to use red onion, or shallots in this recipe, but brown onion works just as well.

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Prep time: 5-10minutes
Cook time : none

Ingredients:
1 cup Organic Persian Cucumber cubed
1 cup of organic cherry Tomatoes quartered or halved
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Sea salt to taste
2 tablespoons of red onion finely chopped, soaked in water for ten minutes then drained just before adding them to salad.

Directions:
Add all the ingredients to a bowl toss well and enjoy!

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