Seasonal Sundays: Cool as Cucumbers (Week 31)

Grab a knife, all, this week's "Seasonal Seven" recipe collection is all about cucumbers, making the most of their zest and crunch in summer drinks, salads, soups and more. I hope you'll find a new family favorite for your own recipe repertoire.

~ Skip Straight to the Good Stuff ~

~ PIN This ~

Welcome to Seasonal Sundays ...

Hey, all. Thank you for following Kitchen Parade, for checking in on these Sunday recipe collections. It means the world to be welcomed into your InBox and RSS readers and most of all, your kitchens. So thank you, thank you. And if you like this week's recipes, perhaps you'll share this newsletter with a friend or social circle? If you forward this message, others may subscribe for free right here. Thank you!

Whew! What a week, eh? Here, it was all CAT visit ... ha! that would be Christian, age 8, Adanna, my sister and Ted, her much-loved husband.

But in the world outside, my goodness, what change. Did others spend last Sunday in tears, mourning a great president's decision to withdraw his nomination? in awe how the most powerful man in the world passed power to a new generation? in huge admiration how Kamala Harris and her team leaped to the front? Even in tears, I sent in my own $$$ to the Harris campaign, just as I did the morning after the debate.

But such joy, such hope, such jubilation is infectious, yes? There's no floating this coconut high to the election, we must do the work, we cannot keep what we know to ourselves, we must do our part.

WE CAN WIN THIS. WE CAN. LET'S DO.

In Praise Of ...

• ... my sister, who's accepting with equanimity a newly diagnosed medical condition that limits her diet, including, oh my, no lemon and no tomato and basically nothing acidic. And oh my, coffee! Between the two of us, she had no flares during the week's visit! 😍 If ony the no-see-ums had left her alone. 🙁


• ... visiting some favorite St. Louis destinations during my family's visit, Grant's Farm (the trolley ride itself is worth the visit) and Meramec Caverns (so much interesting Missouri history here, though our guide got one thing wrong, Missouri was NOT a Confederate State and slavery was outlawed north of its southern border, even if it entered the Union in 1821 as a slave state) and the Missouri Botanical Garden (go early, so hot!) and of course, Ted Drewes, the famous custard station


• ... a "midnight" swim with my eight-year old grandnephew, such fun, swimming in the near dark at, um, nine o'clock

Democracy Matters

The country needs calm, thoughtful and assertive voices amid the chaos inflicted by a minority hellbent on taking/retaining generational power by strangling democratic principles and equal rights. None of us have to personally change the world. We just have to do our part. Pick one thing for the top of your To Do List this week.

The Words of Wise Women

• "Too many Americans aren’t focused on the realities of this race yet. After the election is too late. This is the moment to do what you need to do: to inform, to converse, to relentlessly badger if necessary. No one, no one, should have an excuse for succumbing to misogyny or to racism given the choice in front of us. We each have a personal role to play in making sure that doesn’t happen, and the stakes are far too high to be polite, avoid making waves, or do the easiest thing and turn a blind eye. Be the voice that calls this out as the danger to democracy that it is." ~ Joyce White Vance on Substack, We Need to Talk About the Misogny

Made Me Think ...

• This week, I've been having political conversations with an eight-year old, framing it as that under Trump, "life for your mom will be harder" and "life for you and your kids will be much harder". (His kids? Yeah. This little guy is already imagining his future life.) Climate change is not just in the future but already now and naturally, that affects the world's food supply too.
• READ Food as You Know It Is About to Change (NYT, no paywall)
• TAKEAWAY "We have long conceptualized climate change as an industrial crisis, to be solved through a new and green industrial revolution. But in a few decades, we may find ourselves having solved the industrial problems of warming, only to be confronted instead by a persistent set of challenges that seem pre-modern by comparison — how to extract more calories from less land and how to do so without bankrupting the earth and its soils along the way."

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THE SEASONAL SEVEN: Cool as a Cucumber

For this week's recipes, I aimed for recipes with summery flavors and combinations that ...

• ... offer all-day inspiration
• ... prove that memorable can happen in minutes
• ... are familiar classics with a twist, my specialty

• THE RECIPE Lemon Mint Cucumber Water A great way to stay hydrated. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Cucumber Lemonade Refreshing plus pretty color.

• THE RECIPE Homemade Bread & Butter Pickles No canning required, great for sandwiches and charcuterie boards. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Pepper & Cucumber Refrigerator Pickles

• THE RECIPE Old Liz's Old-Fashioned Cucumber & Tomato Salad Big chunks of summer veggies in a simple dressing.
• ANOTHER TAKE Nana’s Cucumbers with Sour Cream My grandmother's old-fashioned Eastern European cucumber salad, a summer tradition.

• THE RECIPE Julia Child's Cucumber Salad How to soak large, seedy cucumbers so they'll be not just edible but tasty!
• ANOTHER TAKE Cucumber-Mango Salad Made special by tiny spikes of honey and hot sauce. (PIN This)

• THE RECIPE Panzanella The classic Italian tomato and bread salad, worthy of an occasion. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Fattoush (Traditional Middle Eastern Salad) Summer veggies in a lemon-sumac dressing.

• THE RECIPE Cold Cucumber Soup Light but flavorful after a recipe makeover. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Cool-as-a-Cucumber Avocado Soup It's made in the blender and served cold!

DON'T MISS
• Cucumber Dip with Feta
• Creamy Cucumber-Tomato Salsa
• Smitten Kitchen's Avocado-Cucumber Salad

What's Brand-Spankin' New?!

Wondering about a recipe from the last while? Check Recent Recipes from Kitchen Parade and Recent Vegetable Recipes from A Veggie Venture.

• THE RECIPE My Spice Rub Our house seasoning, an all-purpose blend and a "chef's kiss" for meats, vegetables and more. (PIN This)

• THE RECIPE Old-Fashioned Potato Salad Loaded with protein, all my mom's tricks for the best version of this picnic classic. (PIN This)

• THE RECIPE Easy-Easy Hummus Salad Another Quick Supper, just a light, loose hummus topped with chickpeas, fresh summer vegetables and feta. (PIN This)

Compliments!

Please know, YOU really matter here. Your comments and email (my current address is in the FAQs) encourage and inspire and motivate and some times make me laugh out loud or turn a little teary. It's a good day when I can "see" what you're cooking, "hear" how a recipe worked out, "know" what you're loving.

• SHE MADE IT HER OWN! "This was just the recipe I needed in the midst of another heat wave! I wanted to make a substantial vegetable-forward salad for my book group and this minty garden salad was perfect. I'm not big on pasta so I used chickpeas instead and I wanted a bit of crunch so I added a stalk of finely diced celery. It was wonderful. Love the dressing and using fresh cut corn was a discovery." ~ Constancia
• THE RECIPE Garden Pasta Salad with Mint Vinaigrette Light on pasta, generous with summer's best fresh veggies. (PIN This)

July: Reader Favorites

• THE RECIPE Tomato Soup Vegetable Salad An old-fashioned salad makeover.
• ANOTHER TAKE Bloody Mary Salad A jello salad with kick.

July: Lost Recipes

• THE RECIPE Shrimp Salad Recipes A concept recipe, good for supper, better still the next day.
• ANOTHER TAKE Cold Shrimp in Creamy Dill Sauce with Capers Shrimp in a "creamy" dill sauce that tastes much richer than it is.

Looking Back ...

THIS WEEK, YEARS PAST
• 2020 The Best of Summer (Week 31)
• 2022 Cool Down with Gazpacho (Week 31)

RECENT WEEKS
• Summer Sweet Corn (Week 29) (PIN This)
• Peach Season! (Week 28) (PIN This)
• Red, White (& Blue) (Week 27) (PIN This)
• Let's Beat This Heat (Week 26) (PIN This)
• No-Ordinary Green Beans for Summer (Week 24) (PIN This)
• Summer Easy (Week 22) (PIN This)
• Summery Spreads & Dips (Week 21) (PIN This)

Soups & Salads Especially for July

• THE RECIPE Corn & Cucumber Salad with Fresh Blueberries A little cumin keeps it savory.
• ANOTHER TAKE Fresh Corn & Tomato Salad Perfect corn, perfect tomatoes add up to more than the sum of their parts.

Good to Know!

• THE RECIPE Cold-Brewed Coffee Low-acid cold-brewed coffee makes perfect iced coffee for hot summers. (PIN This)

Silly (But Fun?!) Food Holidays

• July 28th — National Hamburger Day (Oil Tanker Burgers, stacked so high, you might call 'em Super Tankers.)
• July 29th — National Lasagna Day (Lasagna Soup with Fresh Spinach, hearty & high protein. )
• July 31st — National Avocado Day (Orange & Avocado Salad, simple but sumptuous.)

The Best No-Recipe Recipe I Made This Week

Eggs + Tortillas + Ham + Cheese = a Hearty High-Protein Breakfast Quesadilla

So easy! I quickly cooked a couple of eggs, then layered then onto a flour tortilla with thin slices of deli ham and cheese. It took maybe 10 minutes, max, plenty of time to pour the coffee, cut up a little fruit and mix a quick salsa-sour cream sauce. So good

Sam's Club Test Kitchen

We are big fans of the big containers of Fresh Cilantro Salsa, a fresh mix of tomato, onion, cilantro and jalapeño. It's more fresh than spicy, great for tacos, quesadillas, mixing into sour cream for a dip. It's lasts a good three weeks and is super-easy to use up. Definitely recommend!

A Quick Peek Into a Real-Life Kitchen

Just so you know, everything's not all pretty pictures around here, in the background is a pile of dirty dishes. And just like many (all?) of us, come five o'clock, I too draw a blank about what to make for supper, despite so many recipes I so dearly love. Here's a quick peek from this week.

• WEEK BEFORE LAST Our garden is about to start shooting peppers so I needed to use up some big supermarket peppers and decided on this old-fashioned recipe from my aunt. Wow! Talk about an easy way to use up odds and ends from the fridge, this week it was deli turkey, yellow squash, cooked rice, some frozen corn and salsa. And then, instead of using the usual canned tomato soup for the topping, I topped it all with that fresh salsa. So good!
• THE RECIPE Stuffed Peppers An old-fashioned favorite, pretty pepper halves parcooked then baked with an adaptable filling of cooked meat, rice and corn.

As mentioned earlier, my sister is adjusting to some new diet requirements, primarily avoiding acidic ingredients. So the recipes below are the ones I cooked during her visit with her husband and an eight-year old grandson, making my own adjustments on her behalf.

• THIS WEEK When family is arriving after a long day of travel, I always like to serve soup. Light. Comforting. Time Friendly. I so love Corn Chower, I've been making it almost as long as I remembering cooking. So good!
• FOR MY SISTER No changes needed!
• THE RECIPE Summer's Best Corn Chowder As bright and colorful as crates of fresh vegetables lined up at the farmstand.

• THIS WEEK During my sister's week-long visit, every morning I mixed up two big batches of Protein Smoothies for the four adults plus an eight-year old, girding us for touristy fun in the mornings and lazy afternoons in the pool and evenings around an Aggravation board! The "kid" didn't love the cucumber I've been adding of late but especially love-loved-loved the batch with fresh peaches. So good!
• FOR MY SISTER? Banana! Peach! No strawberries!
• THE RECIPE Protein Smoothies for Two Maximize protein with everyday ingredients. (PIN This)

• THIS WEEK These made excellent cold pork sandwiches! I cooked the tenderloins the day before, then sliced the meat thin-thin before serving in buns (some great Sara Lee Artesano brioche rolls from Sam's Club) with sandwich pickles and my first-ever batch of comeback sauce. Great for serving a crowd. So good!
• FOR MY SISTER No changes!
• THE RECIPE Tropical Pork Tenderloin A Quick Supper, a bit of sweet, a bit of heat.

• THIS WEEK I've made this salad for 15 years but yes, our tastes do change and the last batch, I found the proportions of pasta and vegetables off, too much pasta. So this time, I halved the pasta, which was definitely still "pasta" salad but with lots of tomato and cucumber. So good!
• FOR MY SISTER? The first day, I set aside some salad for her before adding the tomatoes and for lunch later in the week, the salad pieces were large enough to easily pick out.
• THE RECIPE Greek Pasta Salad Loaded with veggies, dressed with a creamy feta vinaigrette.

• THIS WEEK When people are coming, I make a fresh batch of these onions, they're handy to have on hand for sandwiches, salads, burgers, tacos, etc.
• FOR MY SISTER Anything pickled is wayyyy too acidic for my sister but the cool thing here is, for sandwiches, they're optional. She just didn't eat 'em!
• THE RECIPE Spiced Pickled Red Onions A game changer for tacos, salads, eggs and more.

• THIS WEEK I do so love that "gathering time" before a meal, especially if summer's going to be a little skimpy.
• FOR MY SISTER My Guacamole leans on both tomato and lime juice, hard things to do without but definitely not good for my sister. So! First I just left out the lime juice entirely; I do wish I'd had a fresh lime on hand, though, my sister says that often times, just the zest (which she can eat) is enough. Then I left out the jalapeño which is always optional. But then, I substituted a red bell pepper for tomato; the pepper had lots of liquid, so for moisture, this worked well instead of lime juice. This was a "not bad" version of My Guacamole. It totally disappeared!
• THE RECIPE My Guacamole Restaurant-style guacamole, our house recipe. (PIN This)

• THIS WEEK And dang, it was a good thing there was guacamole and chips because double dang, the chicken I'd thawed for dinner was B.A.D. I refroze it for the garbage and then scrambled to figure out how to proceed. It turns out, this is an adaptable recipe. I had some pre-cooked chicken, added a couple of pre-cooked sausages and a few shrimp on top. Pretty good!
• FOR MY SISTER I left out the spices and had no fresh ginger so this was blander than usual. Still, supper was late so we were all hungry and "hunger is the best sauce" according to our late nana! I intend to make this again in the next week or so, as soon as I can ripen some more peaches!
• THE RECIPE Baked Chicken with Fresh Peaches Quick-seared chicken breasts amid summer-juicy peaches. (PIN This)

• THIS WEEK I got up early to make muffins for the "last breakfast" of my sister's visit. "What smells so good? It smells like cinnamon toast!" said my favorite eight-year old. So good!
• FOR MY SISTER No changes!
• THE RECIPE Cornmeal Muffins with Peaches Barely sweet, pretty muffins with great texture.

Don't Be a Stranger ...

I'd love to hear from you. Comment, send me a quick e-mail (my current address is in the FAQs), dot-dash in Morse code, build a fire for smoke signals, launch a message in a bottle, send a Christmas letter, get the dog to yip, toss me a note wrapped in a rubberband, write a message in the sky, scratch a note in the sand, listen to a seashell, tuck a question into a plastic Easter egg, whatever.

• Any advice for Seasonal Sundays?
• Just one thing that would make it more useful for you?
• Anything else? Chime in, chat away.

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Kitchen Parade is written by second-generation food columnist Alanna Kellogg and features fresh, seasonal dishes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences. Quick Suppers are Kitchen Parade favorites and feature recipes easy on the budget, the clock, the waistline and the dishwasher. Do you have a favorite recipe that other Kitchen Parade readers might like? Just send me a quick e-mail, you'll find my current address in the FAQs. How to print a Kitchen Parade recipe. Never miss a recipe! If you like this recipe, sign up for a free e-mail subscription. If you like Kitchen Parade, you're sure to like my food blog about vegetable recipes, too, A Veggie Venture. When you make my recipes, I'd love to know your results! Just leave a comment below or better still, on the specific recipe's page.

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