Japanese Cucumber Salad

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I found this recipe here.

I have been searching tirelessly for new recipes to use all the cucumbers I’ve gotten this year from the garden. Talking to other locals, I have found out everyone is having a good year for cucumbers, so naturally all ingredients to make dill pickles are sold out withing a 20 mile radius. As a result, I’m stepping out of my comfort zone and making new recipes. This recipe had lots of great comments, as you’ll see if you look at the original post. I have had to make alterations to the recipe, such as excluding sesame seeds and substituting in white wine vinegar, since I do not have rice wine vinegar. With the substitute, I had to dilute the mixture a bit. This recipe makes lots of marinade, so cut as many cucumbers as you need to serve or you think you can eat. I probably wouldn’t add more than 3, maybe 4 cups of cucumbers before doubling the marinade.

Japanese Cucumber Salad Recipe Card Download

What You Will Need

2 Medium Cucumbers (4 small homegrown cucumbers)
1/4 cup White wine vinegar
1 Tbsp Water
1 Tbsp Soy sauce
1 tsp Sesame oil
Salt and Pepper
Covered Mixing Bowl, Cutting board, and Knife

Instructions

Peel you cucumbers, cut in half length wise, cored, then sliced into half-moons. Add to mixing bowl. Add pinch of salt and fresh pepper.
Add remaining ingredients and mix together. Let sit for at least 30 minutes before serving.

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July 31, 2020 0

Cucumber Salsa

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Salsa in a great snack. It’s healthy and goes with so many different types of food. I made this salsa with what I got from the garden and a bit of lemon and spices. This salsa is refreshing and original. The cucumber flavor brings a light and fresh flavor to any dish. You can alter the amount of chili powder to suit your heat preference, the recipe below is for a very mild salsa. The mixture did very very watery, so if you’d like, you could core the cucumbers to get less juice, or you could just decant some of the liquid from the mixture before adding your spices. This went great with tacos and chips, but be creative and try this with something new!

Cucumber Salsa Recipe Card Download

What You Will Need

3 medium cucumbers (small if store bought), diced
2 small vine tomatoes, diced
1 small onion, diced
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp garlic powder
2 tsp onion salt (or 1 tsp normal salt)
2 Tbsp chili powder
Blender
Storage/Serving bowl

Instructions

Prepare all your veggies. Add to a blender. Add lemon juice and cover.
Using the dice setting, hold for 5 seconds. Scoop mixture into your bowl. Add the remaining ingredients to your taste.
Chill 2-3 hours before serving for better taste, or serve right away.

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July 30, 2020 0

Ratatouille

Ratatouille is a classic french dish that stemmed from poverty. Because they could not afford it, they made do with that they had. I don’t usually make vegetarian dishes because they usually aren’t filling, and I require a lot of protein in my daily regimen. This dish, however was not only incredibly filling, but it was also delicious! I don’t always like the texture of zucchini, but in this dish it has the perfect consistency and the tomato just compliments the squashes so well. For flavoring, I decided to go with thyme, rosemary and basil, and all three spices help unify this dish and add a layer of more flavor. I highly recommend this dish! Finally, though I have not tried freezing this dish, the ingredients are perfect for freezing, so I plan to freeze some the next time I make this giant pot of ratatouille. This recipe makes 6-7 adult sized servings.

Wash, half, and slice 2 large zucchini and 2 medium yellow squash. Dice one medium onion. Add all to a dutch oven.
Place dutch oven over medium high heat. Add 2 Tbsp canola or vegetable oil and 1 Tbsp garlic powder. Cook for 5 minutes stirring occasionally.
Add 16 Oz of diced tomatoes, or 3 large tomatoes diced. Add 2 tsp of each thyme, rosemary, and basil. Cook covered for 10-15 minutes or until tomato is cooked, and zucchini and squash are tender.

July 27, 2020 0

Cheesy Chicken Casserole

A couple of days ago, we had KFC for dinner and we had our wings and drumsticks left over. I wanted to use up our leftovers and also make something new. As a result, this casserole was born. If you don’t prefer spaghetti, you could use other noodles, such as egg noodles or bowtie pasta. I used vermicelli, but that’s just what I’ve always used. I break my pasta in half, but you can also beak it smaller for this casserole if you want an easier time serving. I used 3 pieces of chicken. I warmed them, de-boned, removed cartilage, then tore up and added the chicken and the skin. Other than that, I served my pasta casserole right away, however it was pretty messy with the big noodles. The leftovers were very easy to divide and serve. Absolutely delicious, and I plan to make this dish or a similar version again in the future. Also, since I used KFC chicken it had plenty of flavor. If you plan to make this with a very plain chicken, you should consider doubling the spice in the casserole to add more flavor.

Bake one chicken breast till internal temperature of 165 F is reached. (Bake at 400 F for 30 minutes. You may also use a whole can of shredded chicken, or 3-4 pieces of fried chicken and skin.)
Using a mixer, shred the chicken. Place 1 cup of shredded chicken to the side and preserve the rest.
In a large sauce pan, bring water to a boil and cook 12 oz of spaghetti until al dente and strain.
In a 3 qt casserole dish, add your shredded chicken (1 cup), 1 can of cream of chicken concentrate, 1/2 can of milk, 1 Tbsp garlic powder, 2 tsp paprika, and 1 tsp curry powder. Stir together.
Heat oven to 400 F.
Add spaghetti and stir together. Add 6 oz of your choice cheese. (I used 4 oz shredded mozzarella, 1 oz shredded white shape cheese, and 1 oz crumbled white American cheese.) Stir together until cheese is distributed.
Top with even layer of parmasean, then bake for 20-25 minutes until golden. Serve right away, or refrigerate, cut, reheat, and serve.

July 26, 2020 1

New Kitchen Shelf

If you’ve been following me for a while, you may remember my post back in January or February about my DIY Hidden Pantry. This pantry was very helpful, and very convenient, however over time, the screws began to pull from the wall since we didn’t use drywall anchors. Also, the pantry was too small for all the snack foods I had and needed to store. We eventually began to store bags of chips on the fridge just because they wouldn’t fit in the space anymore.

Josh and I want to eventually put in built in cabinets around the fridge, however, we want to see how we can use our space in the meantime. So, we decided to get a shelf from target, and if it’s very useful, we’ll eventually add doors, or install all built ins. With built ins, we hope to also re-arrange our washer & dryer, but one step at a time.

The shelf we got is the 5 shelf bookcase from target, and we picked the color black. It was easy assembly, and gave us so much more space. Each shelf holds 30 pounds, and the shelf is shallow enough to not interfere with the dryer door.