Avocado Cucumber Salad With Yogurt Lime Sauce
On my way home from work yesterday, I passed a market woman, machann, with a pile of large green skinned avocados spread out in front of her. My bag of ripe avocados in hand, I mulled over dinner the rest of the way home. Later that night, Paul and I munched on a buttery and crisp Avocado Cucumber Salad with Yogurt Lime Sauce under our mango tree as we waited for cooler evening breezes to arrive. This salad is inspired by smitten kitchen.
Yield: Serves 2 as a side salad
Ingredients:
- 3 small cucumbers, unpeeled, cut into small cubes
- 1 large avocado, or 2 small avocados, peeled, seed removed and cut into small cubes
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped red onion
- 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
- 2 tablespoons yogurt
- 2 tablespoons lime juice
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/8 teaspoon cumin
- pinch cayenne
Steps:
- In a small bowl, whisk together the yogurt, lime, salt, garlic, cumin and cayenne.
- Add the chopped cucumber, red onion & parsley to a serving bowl. Mix briefly to combine. Top the cucumber mixture with the avocado chunks. Do not stir.
- Drizzle the yogurt sauce over the top of the salad to prevent the avocado from getting mushy.
- Serve immediately.
Crisp Thai Cucumber & Peanut Salad
A Caribbean flu hit our household in Haiti this week. First Paul, then me, now the kids. Sigh. During times of illness, my go-to comfort food is the reassuringly simple, cool, and refreshing cucumber. Cucumbers are my vegetable equivalent of chicken soup. As I gradually felt better throughout the week, my cucumber salads became more elaborate and flavorful. This Crisp Thai Cucumber & Peanut Salad, a Thai-inspired riff, is crunchy, sour, and salty, with a hint of coconut sweetness.
Lebanese Inspired Cucumber & Tomato Salad
I travel a lot for work. A favorite ritual after each trip is to try and bring some of the new flavors back to our table in Haiti. In a small way, it makes these long trips and hard-to-imagine places a little more understandable for our two curious toddlers. This Lebanese Inspired Cucumber & Tomato Salad has been an often requested favorite of Rebecca and the kids since my travels to Lebanon in February.
Lebanon is stunning and amazingly complex for such a small country. The cuisine of Lebanon, like the country itself, sits at the intersection of many major cultural currents. This vibrant salad is my take on the refreshing salads I ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. The ingredients are simple but the result is surprisingly complex, a bright and versatile salad with tangy herb flavor. This salad can be eaten as a main, as a side, wrapped in fresh warm pita bread, or as an accompaniment to grilled meat or cheese. Note that this recipe uses green zatar spice which can be found online, most Middle Eastern groceries, and surprisingly even in Port-au-Prince, Haiti due the large number of a Lebanese and Syrian diaspora in Haiti.
Chilled Cucumber Avocado Soup
While my future husband was happily scarfing fry bread tacos in Colorado, I was sweating my 7th grade Home Economics class further north in Canada. To set the scene of my distress, it was the last month of the class and I had just managed to fail my sewing test; a wobbly threaded testament to my poor hand-eye coordination and impatience. My home budgeting project took a financial downturn when my teacher noted that my incorrect math had rendered my fictitious future self seriously overdrawn and facing financial ruin. Next up was the nutrition segment of the class. And it was cook or die. Knowing I had some serious ground to make up, I marshaled my resources and consulted with my Mother. With her menu guidance, I plotted a path to home ec redemption with a meal I hoped would awe my teacher and pass the class. Since my cooking expertise to that point had been largely limited to toast, it was a painful two-day introduction to cooking resulting in an jumbled menu of chilled cucumber soup, shepherd's pie, and dark chocolate mousse. I don't remember the meal being particularly yummy to my picky teenage palate, but the chilled cucumber soup had my teacher in raptures and won my respite from the shame of failing home ec.
Chilled cucumber avocado soup is my grown up rendition of that home ec redemption soup. In this summery soup, the avocado and yogurt provide a silky texture to highlight the light vegetal qualities of cucumber. This soup is a refreshing dish and can be ready in a flash for a starter or a light meal on its own.
Kale Cobb Salad with Avocado Green Goddess
Kale Cobb Salad with Avocado Green Goddess is Paul's favorite salad. Let me back up a step to highlight the significance of this statement. To say Paul is not 'saladly inclined,' is to put it mildly. In fact, the one time I saw Paul order a salad in a restaurant, to my slack-jawed amazement, it turned out he was sick. But Paul's disinclination to eat raw leafy greens has not stopped me in my quest to make a salad that he will love. A few years ago I whipped up this cobb salad, and to my delight, Paul liked it... so much that he requests it for his birthday menu each year. Kale Cobb Salad with Avocado Green Goddess is not a traditional cobb salad, but uses our favorite elements, greens, tomatoes, cucumber, bacon and eggs, and adds avocado and a punchy green dressing loaded with herbs.
Turkey Feta Burgers with Yogurt Curry Sauce
On a holiday weekend famous for feasting and barbecues, we wanted to share one of our favorite burgers. These healthy Turkey Feta Burgers with Yogurt Curry Sauce are quick to make, light on fat, and big on flavor. If you are feeling adventurous, you can also substitute the turkey in this recipe for another lean meat like lamb, buffalo, or venison. To top these burgers, we ditch the usual lettuce, and opt instead for the crips fresh accompaniments of cucumber, tomato, and homemade pickled red onions.
