Long Time No Blog

The garden has been taking all of my free time, and the heat is exhausting me. But it is worth every second of work. The tomatoes are flourishing, and so very delicious. A combination of squash bugs and extreme heat killed all of my squash plants AND all of my cucumber plants. I was so depressed about this, but I find I'm not alone. Several of friends lost all of their squash plants during this terrible heatwave. Fortunately, my friends Mary and Roberto's cucumbers are amazingly prolific, and they share.

Tonight we're having Health Salad. We used to get this at Waldbaum's Supermarket in Staten Island. I loved it. Most Health Salad recipes don't have tomatoes, but they do in New York. Once in West Virginia I ordered a Greek salad, and this is almost exactly what I got minus the cabbage, plus olives. Tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and green peppers - what more could a person want to eat? Waldbaum's salad didn't have radishes, but they're a good addition.

Health Salad
Makes 6 servings.
1-lb. cabbage
1 1/2 cups peeled, seeded and diced cucumber
1 red or green pepper, seeded and diced in rather large dice
1/2 cup Vidalia or other sweet onions in rather large dice
3 large tomatoes, cored, seeded and diced in large dice or use 2 or 3 cups of grape tomatoes
1/4 cup sliced radishes
1/4 cup cider or white vinegar
1 tsp. honey1 tsp. salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp. mustard seeds
1/4 cup parsley, chopped

Shred cabbage and place in a large bowl. Dice cucumber and place over cabbage. After cucumber, layer pepper, onions and radishes.
In a small bowl, whisk the vinegar, honey and salt. Pour over the salad.
In a small pan, heat oil and mustard seeds until oil is just smoking. Pour the hot oil over the salad and let sit for 3-4 minutes. Stir in parsley and tomatoes and serve.

There are also Health Salads that are put in the refrigerator overnight so the cucumbers and onions are almost pickled. Tonight we're actually using balsamic vinegar instead of cider vinegar.
Another variation calls for a teaspoon of caraway seeds also.

Anyway. That's supper for tonight.

I've added two new links to vegan recipe blogs. I'm not actually a vegan, but I like to eat vegan dishes as often as possible.