Summer Avocado, Cucumber, and Olive Salad | Farmers' Market Days

Saturday mornings during the summer months are reserved for a round of the Farmer's Market!! Its fun to walk around the square, looking for fresh local produce, munching on a bakery item while sipping coffee. Farmer's Markets are truly a family affair around here. Farming families selling their wares and city families hunting for salad greens, honey, maple syrup, and cheese.

Crunchy Vegetable Salad with Yogurt Dressing

I just crave the taste of garden fresh vegetables in the winter. Though we are under 9 inches of snow here and it is bitterly cold here, we are lucky to get crisp and juicy salad vegetables in our favourite stores. Last week, I bought sweet bell peppers: red, yellow, and orange, crunchy cucumbers, and some beautiful tomatoes for a salad. This is a salad I love - it has a light home made dressing that I make with yogurt and lots of nuts and seeds to add to the crunch!!

Jeweled Quinoa Pilaf with Pepitas and Cranberries

Quinoa has been a great favourite of mine ever since I discovered it!! I use it not only as a grain substitute but for an amazingly wide range of cooking. Its extremely versatile and can be combined well with a really wide multitude of flavours. It inspires creativity :)

Cucumber Salad with Peanuts

We've just got past the first few days of spring and already we are feeling the difference in the weather. Its a tad warmer, the snow has almost entirely disappeared and green shoots of grass pushing their tiny heads out of the barren ground!

Warmer weather definitely encourages a change in the menu and I am really enjoying making fresh and light salads now-a-days!! Here's one with cucumber and peanuts! The beauty of this salad recipe is that its very easy to put together, can be added as a side dish to a meal, and serves as a wonderful and tasty starter too :)

Ingredients:
1 medium cucumber, peeled & diced
2 green chilies, minced
1/2 tsp ginger, grated
2 tbsp cilantro, minced
2 tbsp fresh coconut, shredded
1/4 cup peanuts, roasted & crushed
1/2 cup plain yogurt
Salt, to taste
Pinch of sugar

Method:

1. Mix the cucumber, chilies, ginger, coconut, and cilantro. all the ingredients together. Set aside for 10 minutes.
2. Blend salt and sugar into the yogurt. Add to the cucumber mix and coat the cucumber well.
3. Add the peanuts.
4. Mix and serve immediately with a meal.

This salad goes well with parathas, bhaji, or dal. But I often dish it up separately as a starter with roasted papads (poppadums) or as a dip with crunchy corn tortillas. This refreshing recipe goes to Neha @ Easy & Tasty recipes who is hosting AFAM Cucumber this month.

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Garden-Fresh Salad

My patio vegetable patch has been yielding some lovely cucumbers and plum tomatoes this week. These are great for snacking, but I occasionally toss them into a bowl for a salad. The salad here is a simple salad, but it packs a great punch when accompanied with a nice heavy desi-style lunch. Alternately pair it with Spicy Paneer-Filled Rolls or a Pilaf for a complete meal!

Creamy Cucumber Curd Rice

I usually head to the local farmer's market on Saturday mornings. This morning I lingered a little too long there as I got into a really interesting conversation with a local farmer who is growing edible flowers!!!! But more of that a post to follow. While the conversation was both fun and educative, the heat index was not!! And by the time I got home with some really beautiful sugar snaps, zucchini, and cucumber, I knew that I had caught a touch of the sun.