cookbook challenge: cucumber mint salad

cucumber mint salad

Week two of my cookbook challenge featured Michael Smith’s cucumber mint salad with spicy Asian dressing. This was a very simple recipe with only a few ingredients, cucumbers, mint and red onion. The dressing called for rice wine vinegar, which I was out of, so I substituted with lemon juice and a bit of white vinegar instead. It was just fine. The spicy comes from the addition of a little chilli garlic sauce (found at Asian food stores) which I personally loved because it added a little extra flavour and bite. 

I love the pickled cucumber taste of this dish. So did my daughter, who kept asking for “more pickles please” when she tried the salad the next day with her lunch! 

Since I was making this ahead for a mommy luncheon, I pre-cut the cucumbers and onions the night before and made the dressing separately and stored it in a jar to pour over the next day. I added the mint leaves the next day as well. 

So what’s on the menu this week? 

I was thinking back to our trip to France (pre-baby days) and about all the wonderful moules + frites I had there. So this weekend I’m trying out the mussels in white wine with vegetables and herbs from the What’s for Dinner? cookbook. 

[image from our 2005 trip to France; here a cafe in Nice where we ate many, many bowls of moules + frites] 

Do you remember this show… classic Canadian icons Ken Kostick and Mary Joe Eustace (most recently known as former wife of Dean McDermott)? I used to watch this show every day at 5:30pm for many years when it was on. I love their recipes — simple, delicious, and done in 30 minutes. I guess they were kind of the Rachel Ray about 15 years ago! 

Thanks to new friends Jodi and Maeghan for participating in the cookbook challenge with me. Check out what’s cooking in their kitchens here and here. Anyone else up for the challenge?