Lemon Cucumber Salad

One of the first new foods I tried after I moved out to northern California was a lemon cucumber. You usually buy them when they are a light greenish yellow. You do not have to peel or seed them when they are like that and they are a lot less bitter than the regular slender green types. They are also round and when they get a little bigger their skin turns a darker, more intense, yellow. When they are like this you do need to peel and seed them.

We planted two lemon cucumber starts in our bed this year and they have taken over. They nearly choked the peppers, and have now climbed up the chain-link into a tree. There are even a couple of blossoms up there, we may have our first ever cucumber tree in a few weeks. The point is, they have grown like mad; they grow too fast for us to only use the young fuss-less fruits (vegetables, fine).
The Whole Foods Market Cookbook (2002) had a recipe for Thai Cucumber Salad. The salad is made up of two pounds of cucumbers, a jalapeño, scallions and peanuts. We had a few handfuls of blistered peanuts from Trader Joe's (which are good, but not as good as you hope they will be, because that's how Trader Joe's does) that were waiting to be included in something.
The dressing was simply brown rice vinegar, sugar, garlic, salt, curry powder, and lemongrass. Luck had it that we had bought fresh lemongrass at the farmers market the week before which also needed to be used (you can see the leaves poking in the left side of the picture above). Fortune had it that I had made homemade curry powder about a month before, which is spicy and delicious. It was for a tofu scramble I made from the always perfect Ms. Swanson (whose book I referenced in a previous post).
I whisked together the dressing; peeled, seeded, and sliced nine of those golden veggies; prepped the remaining ingredients; mixed the salad and poured and stirred in the dressing. Nothing to it. (Nothing to it took forty minutes . . . that is how I do).
The cook worked on a Thai basil eggplant (slender Asian ones also from our garden). It included pine nuts, olive oil and chili peppers. I made the tofu with my new method which involves two cooking processes and corn starch; it is good, but not quite there yet. This was our dinner:
The eggplant was soft and creamy and the tofu was nearly crunchy with a soft center (like I said, it's not quite there yet, but it is good. I would say it's something I can cook, but not cook impressively). The salad was fresh tasting, but not that spectacular.
Here's the leftover salad looked like this evening:
The color was darker and the flavors much deeper. The salad needed a full day to marinate, the 20 minutes the recipe called for were clearly not enough. I should have known since the same can be said for the cabbage salad we practically live off of some weeks. The peanuts had gotten soggy but everything else had improved.
Speaking of improvement I am planning another attempt at zucchini bread. Wish me luck.

Jess Can't Breathe

We took a beautiful vacation to the state of Washington a few weeks ago. Good timing too. Because as you may have heard the entire state of California where we reside is on fire. It has been for almost a month. We had the good fortune to leave right when they started.
When we drove back in the mighty Flying Eggplant (Ford Ranger) we passed Mt. Shasta. Here is a picture of both the mountain ans the Flying Eggplant:


Yay. Isn't California a scenic beauty? Everything is so dramatic and breathtaking. Speaking of here's what awaited us on the other side of the mountain:

That was taken just off of the bridge across Mt. Shasta. We still had about a two hour drive down into the valley before we got home. As we drove the air got thicker and thicker with smoke. Looking to the west it looked like a regular light gray fog. To the east it looked like what it was, smoke. There was no sky. There had been not sky for about a week and a half (that was two weeks ago). There was only smoke. The air when we got home was acrid and choking. We were lucky to be gone.
Last week it looked like it was going to clear up. The 4th was gorgeous and the sky blue. Things were looking up. And then the fire it got worse. An overnight change of the winds lead to the fires in Butte County exploding in size. On Tuesday morning I went out side to feed the cats and it was raining ash.
Morning glory with ash replacing morning dew. Lovely.
And that orange hue? Not some photography trick but the natural light outside. The whole sky was orange all day and it still is three days later.
Now I am not complaining, just describing how it's been. A lot of people have lost homes and the worst thing I have is some ashy flowers (and some smoke particles that we have been told will never leave our bodies since there is no way to expectorate such particulate matter - that was complaining).