Summer Tomato Cucumber Salad

Summer Tomato Cucumber Salad

This year my tomato plants are looking MARVELOUS!  Last summer wasn't the best  season in my garden for tomatoes.  Some years are simply great and others seem to suck.  The only thing really SUCKING about my garden this year is the damn gopher who is now eating my tomato plants.  Well, actually, he doesn't eat the plant. He, or she,  gets up over and into the gallon gopher cage - yes, the gopher cage that I have had to add to the gopher wired planting box - and cuts through the bottom vines.  Thanks, you stinking little varmint.  Why?  You don't even eat the tomatoes? You just ruin the whole thing for us.  Ah, country livin'.

I have one really beautiful Paul Robson heirloom tomato plant and I thought it was safe.  This afternoon my husband found it mutilated.  This is such sad news because it is my favorite of the season so far.  Luckily I had a really big juicy ripe Paul Robson from that plant sitting on the counter waiting to be used for dinner.  (And now I have about 2 dozen really beautiful unripe green Paul Robson's that the gopher gave us...... what do you do with a bunch of really big beautiful green tomatoes???)

For dinner tonight I made a delicious Tomato Cucumber Salad.

Tomato Cucumber Salad Recipe

feeds 3 - 5 hearty souls

4 Lemon Cucumbers

1 Large ripe beautiful tomato

Small bunch of fresh parsley

Small handful of black kalamata olives

1 avocado

Olive oil

Red wine vinegar

 Sea salt and pepper to taste

1. Chop the cucumbers into bite sized pieces.  I like mine to be a bit chunky.  I really love lemon cucumbers and my cucumber plants are producing like crazy but you can use any type of cucumber.
2. Chop the tomato into bite sized pieces.  Again, I like my bites to be a bit chunky.  
3. Chop a handful of parsley.  I used Italian and curly parsley out of my garden.  I would say about 1/4 cup chopped parsley. Really, though, any fresh herb will work in this salad - mint, cilantro, some rosemary, sage?
4. Chop or slice a small handful of kalamata olives without the pits.  Again, probably 1/4 cup.
5. Add 1 or more tablespoons of olive oil and pour some red wine vinegar in.  Stir the bowl of cucs, toms, parsley, olive oil and vinegar gently to coat.  Add sea salt and pepper to taste. Let sit  for a bit (if you can!) to marinate.
6. Chop an avocado into bite sized pieces and add to the salad after it has marinated.

Here's a photo of the beautiful colors inside a Paul Robson heirloom tomato.  Almost a maroon purple red with tinges of green.  Super delicious, juicy, amazing!

Organic red potatoes cooking up.

My wok full of sesame oil, chopped shallot, chopped garlic, carrots from the Farmer's market, and tons of chard and kale from our garden.

I paired the fresh summer tomato cucumber salad with our most favorite go to plant based comfort food dinner:

Mashed potatoes

Vegan gravy

Sauteed greens

and Seitan 

As a disclaimer I want to say.... we just got back from backpacking in Yosemite where we had very limited food, carried heavy packs, hiked at high elevation, and did a loop of over 25 miles and nothing we ate was fresh.  So let's just say that we enjoyed ourselves immensely and ate platefuls of food tonight!  All bellies are happy at this house (even the dogs who ate the kale stems while I was cooking)