Keeping Things Cool: Cucumber Blueberry Salad. And Quick Pickles!

Cuke and blueberry salad ingredients

How hot was it? We don’t need to relive that. 🙂 But, cucumbers worked well as the star ingredient of the WFM cooking demo on July 20! And, since all our produce farmers had plenty of cukes and/or blueberries for sale, a cucumber and blueberry salad seems a good choice. Plus, I brought back the Quick and Simple Pickles recipe from last August with just a minor twist, using maple syrup from our own Ackermann’s Maple Farm as the sweetener.

Fill the pint jar to the brim!

First, click HERE for the link to the Quick Pickles recipe. I followed it as is except I used a scant tablespoon of maple syrup instead or the two tablespoons of honey I used last summer. The original recipe calls for up to two tablespoons of sugar, buts notes the sweetener as optional. Oh, I used pickling cukes. I tried a bite and found the peel to be bitter. It would not matter when using a heat pickling technique, but I opted to peel them for this recipe.

Now, on to the salad! So easy! I used regular cucumbers and followed this recipe except for changes noted:

Cucumber Blueberry Salad
1 cucumber (10 inches long and 2.5″ diameter or so)
2 cups (1 pint) fresh blueberries
2 tablespoons thinly sliced scallions
2 tablespoons olive oil
1+ tablespoon lime juice (I used freshly squeezed lemon juice)
1+ tablespoon rice vinegar (or type of your choice)
½ cup coarsely chopped cilantro or parsley leaves, loosely packed (I used parsley)
¼ teaspoon salt
1⁄8 teaspoon black pepper
½ cup (2 ounces) crumbled feta cheese, optional (No feta used but a great addition!)

Of course, adjust all seasonings/ingredients to taste!
 

Peel cucumbers if/as desired. With a sharp knife, cut the cucumber in half lengthwise. With the tip of a spoon, scrape out the seeds
Cut into thin slices. In a large bowl, toss cucumber, blueberries, scallions and. In a small bowl, whisk the olive oil, lime (or lemon) juice, parsley or cilantro , salt and pepper. Pour over the cucumber mixture and toss to combine.
Sprinkle with feta cheese, if desired (you could use a stronger vinegar if using feta). As I always say, use all recipes as a guideline. What tastes best to YOU is what matters. That and supporting our farmers and vendors, of course. Enjoy!