FCG Summer Salads 6/21/05

Happy First Day of Summer to all of you! I hope each of you have a safe and pleasant one this year, one filled with wonder and excitement and joy. Today I’m sending out two recipes for salads. It seemed a good way to kick off the summer with something easy to make and delicious to eat with little to no cooking required. :) The first is a broccoli salad recipe from Eva of our group. She assures me it is delicious, and reading through it, I’m inclined to believe it. The second is for a cucumber salad that I discovered a while ago and enjoy very much. Happy and Safe Fourth of July to you all and be good! – Devon

Broccoli Salad
2 Bunches of Broccoli – wash and cut into florets
½ red onion, minced
1 cup fresh mushrooms, sliced
¼ cup sunflower seeds
1 lb bacon, cooked & crumbled
Toss all that together and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Dressing:
1 cup mayonnaise
2 TBSP white wine vinegar (Eva says she used cider & it turned out)
2 TBSP brown sugar
Mix together and keep refrigerated until ready to serve. “Okay—so I mixed up the first batch of stuff the night before. I also mixed the dressing up and put it in the fridge. I did not use the whole batch of dressing. It makes the salad a little slimy. I added the dressing to the salad just before I was ready to serve it and I added a little bit at a time until I thought it was enough. I don’t think I had a whole bunch left over, but I know I didn’t use it all. And this is a salad (as are most salads) best eaten quickly. You can refrigerate it and eat it over several days, but it tends to make the broccoli slimy and the dressing gets really watery.” (Eva)

Cucumber Salad
1 cup light sour cream (regular works in this recipe too, but I’ve found that this is one of the few times regular and light sour cream are interchangeable as far as taste and texture are concerned.)
¼ cup chopped red onion (I usually just chop a small whole red onion)
2 TBSP Lemon Juice
2 TBSP Cider Vinegar
1 TBSP Sugar
¼ tsp salt (I never add this)
1/8 tsp pepper (I never add this either)
3 cucumbers, peeled & sliced

Mix together the sour cream, onion, juice, vinegar, sugar, salt, & pepper. Then stir in your peeled & sliced cucumber. It is good right away, but even better if you let it sit at least an hour in the fridge. This will keep (dressed) in the fridge for a couple of days but you may have to stir it back together (especially if you use light sour cream). It keeps better if you don’t slice your cucumbers super-thing too. I have found that I like to do mine in half-circles about ¼” thick, but play around with it and do whatever you like. It’s pretty with the red onions peeking through the dressing.