Showing posts with label cucumber. Show all posts

Day 75: Cucumber Sandwiches

I loved these sandwiches as a kid. My grandmother was a master at making them. My grandmother, in my eyes the master chef, would actually toast a piece of bread and cut one piece of bread in half creating two full size pieces. We all thought that this was just another product of her being raised during the depression and she was just being frugal. Actually, grandma was just introducing us to high society.

"As the thinness of the bread is a point of pride in the kitchen, a dense-textured white Pullman loaf is cut with a wide-bladed knife, which guides the cut; daylight should pass through the resulting fine pores." - Wikipidia

Grandma can cut a piece of bread thinner than anyone...ya, I'm puttin out a challenge. Think you can cut it thinner? It is quite the art and takes quite a bit of practice. I can cut it in half but I'm still not as good as grandma. Another key point is the thinness of the cucumber. You can't have thin bread and thick cucumber...that defeats the purpose.

So raise your little fingers, dab the corners of your mouth and hoover up a dozen or so of these delectable morsels.

Traditional Cucumber Sandwiches

1 loaf of sliced bread toasted
1 cucumber sliced thin
veganaise
seasoning blend like spike or oneara

The key is to slice the piece of toast in half right when it comes out of the toaster. Be careful, its hot! Place your hand on top of the toast so you can feel as you cut through it. Now cover one half with veganaise, sliced cucumber, and sprinkle with seasoning. Now "put the top back on" as grandma would say and slice on the diagonal....it has to be on the diagonal or it won't taste right!
cucumber cucumber sandwiches spike
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Special: Mango Salsa

Ok, mango salsa isn't Polynesian either, it's more of a tropical, mexican, quasi, international marriage thing. Kind of like Izzy marries Jenifer Lopez but with less calories and drama. This works up really fast and goes well with so much. Add a little lettuce and you have a salad...wallah.

Mango Salsa
1 mango cubed
1/2 red onion chopped
2 sweet chilies chopped (or hot chilies if you like it hot...some do)
1 cucumber chopped
1/2 bunch cilantro chopped
juice from 1 lime
salt to taste

Mix it up and there ya go........wallah.....
cilantro cucumber green chilies
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Day 49: Poke - Oka

Poke or Oka are both raw fish dishes. Poke is Hawaiian and Oka is Samoan. They are very similar so I'll give both recipes here. Oka also means "oh my good gosh golly" in Samoan.....Ya, it's that good! Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows that I can be a bit......hormonal. Let's just leave it at that. And the consumption of soy doesn't exactly help that. So, needless to say, my dear husband doesn't allow it in the house. But this is one of the 2 recipes that I do use tofu in to satisfy my fish craving. Interesting, tofu makes me hormonal but I eat it to satisfy meat craving that I get when I'm hormonal......hmmm,.....I'm sensing a vicious cycle.

Vegan Poke
1 pkg extra firm tofu
3-4 firm roma tomatoes
1/2 red onion chopped
2 thingies of green onion
1/4 c soy sauce
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp red pepper flakes

Slice the tofu into small cubes. Mix the soy sauce and chili powder. Marinate the tofu in the soy sauce for several hours in the fridge. Chop the tomatoes, onion, green onion very fine and mix with the pepper flakes. Drain the tofu but save a bit of the sauce. Lightly mix the tofu with everything else. Try to keep the tofu in cubes. Serve chilled.

Vegan Oka

Follow the same recipe for Poke only instead of tomatoes use cubed cucumber and add coconut milk to the finished mixture. Also serve chilled.
chili powder cucumber green onion
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Day 22: Sushi with Edamame

When I was young we were blessed to have many foreign exchange students live in our home, most of them being from Japan. This was a great cultural experience for us kids as we learned to love the culture, the people, and the food through their influence.

This was all cool until, as a 3rd grader, I went to school with sushi in my lunch box. In theory this sounded cool. In practice it was not. You should have seen the faces I got. I was shamed for the rest of my elementary career. Of course, it didn't help that my mom kept insisting that it was cool and did it on a regular basis.

Jump forward to the present. I still love sushi and as an adult I'm glad I can wear this out in the open. I'm even part of an elite sushi club. Yes, it's true. I'm in a club of four women that eat sushi together in Salt Lake City Utah. Now, you may ask, sushi, in Salt lake? Yes, in fact, some of the best sushi I have had was in a town called logan in northern utah. If you are ever on a sushi eating tour call me and I'll give you details.

On one of our club excursions we met at the restaurant and ordered edamames for an appetizer. Come to find out, this was the first time one of our members had had them. Thinking they were snap peas she ate the whole thing, pod and all. I would not recommend this. After the meal, when she realized the rest of us has been putting the pods in a separate bowl, she laughed and confessed she had secretly been spitting them in her napkin the whole time to which she displayed a napkin full of pods.

This recipe can be as spicy or mild as you wish, just add the chili sauce a little at a time. I used to make it with imitation crap but now I substitute garbanzo beans and I like it just as much. I even got a little kid who is a picky eater to like this. His eyes were watering the whole time because of the heat but he kept coming back for more. I'm sure you will too.

Sushi
cooked rice
seaweed paper/nori
1/2 c garbanzo beans
Vietnamese chili sauce
veganaise
1/2 avocado
1/2 cucumber sliced length wise
wax paper
sesame seeds

Cook the rice and let it cool out of the fridge. If it cools in the fridge it will go hard. In a blender, add the garbanzo beans, a spoonful of veganaise, and chili sauce (add a little at a time). Slice your cucumber and avocado length wise. Place a sheet of nori on the wax paper and wet your hands (this will help keep the rice from sticking to you). Take a handful of rice and form it into a ball the size of a baseball. Keep working with it till it holds together well. This brings out the gluten so it will stick to your nori. Now put it on your seaweed and spread it around pressing it into your nori till the whole sheet is covered. Now flip the sheet over so the rice is on the bottom. On one long end of the sheet, layer the garbanzo bean mixture, sliced avocado, and cucumber. With 2 hands start to roll the sushi. Roll with the wax paper (make sure you don't roll it in) this will help keep it tight. To seal it, wet the nori at the end and squeeze it together. Now roll it in sesame seeds. To cut, use a very sharp knife. Cut the tube in half and then put the two halves together. Keep doing this until they are 1/4-1/2 an inch thick. Stack on a serving plate and serve with wasabi and soy sauce.

Steam or blanch your edamames and sprinkle with sea salt. Remember not to eat the pod!
avocado brown rice cucumber
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Day 21: Pita Sandwiches

Anyone who knows me knows I AM NOT a baker! This comes from despising exact measurements. This is why I failed math....1/4 is close to 1/3.....1,that's just 1 away from 2, that's close...what's the difference? I also can't stand following recipes exactly. It cramps my creative flowage. For most recipes I just read the recipe, get a general idea what it's supposed to taste like and then I let the buds lead. I go to the fridge and see what I have that would work and wait like everyone else to see what comes out at the end. I guess you could say I like surprises. This is why I'm a cook, not a baker.

Baking requires the letter of the law....I'm more of a spirit of the law kind of gal, if you know what I mean. This of course, has gotten me in trouble from time to time. For example, we were having the LDS missionaries over for dinner. One had previously mentioned that he loved Utah scones (ya, they're actually called that. To the rest of the world scones are more of a biscuit thing...I guess Utah's just a little different...in more than one way). Having been a missionary myself, I knew what it meant to have some comfort food every once in a while so I decided to make some. Well, after adding a pinch of this and a dash of that they were flat gobs of goo....this signaled they needed more flour, which made them hard rocks of goo. I thought they would soften as they cooked in the oil, so into the pan they went where 4 "scones" quickly soaked up ruffly a 1/2 quart of oil. The missionaries had just arrive so I had no choice but to serve them. One bite and oil came squirting out. The missionaries insisted they were delicious but I quickly took them back to the kitchen vowing to never bake again!

This is why Matthew is the baker at our house. Matthew is THE baker man - I love to watch him in the kitchen! rar! He makes these great pita pockets from a no-fail recipe for wheat bread. We've had some amazing meals with these pockets. This is just one to wet your whistle.

Pita Sandwiches
1 pita per person
1 can garbanzo beans
sliced cucumber
1 carrot
sprouts
sunflower seeds
green onion
cabbage
cherry tomatoes
Homemade hummus or veganaise

Slice in half, toast, and open your pitas, Lather the inside with hummus (yum, you could stop right there). Now, in a food processor place everything but the sprouts and cherry tomatoes. Pulse once or twice just to chop everything but leave it chunky. Slice the tomatoes in half. Fill your pocket with the mixture and slip in a few tomato halves and sprouts. Can you just feel the raw goodness?
cabbage carrot cherry tomatoes
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Day 16: Open Face Sandwiches

On the north shore of Hawaii there is a little surf town called Haleiwa. It's a great little tourist town with shops, restaurants, and a great dive shop. There is also a health food store that has a fantastic restaurant in the back. The people are friendly and the food is delicious. The menu consists of lively dishes, most of which are the "chefs" own concoctions. The chef, a friendly surfer bum, who only has a job to support his surfing habit; willingly talks with patrons as he cooks in the small 10 ft x 5 ft kitchen.

While there we had some superb open face vegan sandwiches and I was hooked! I like them on a bagel because of the chewiness but Matthew prefers something a bit more crispy....I suppose its his endearment to Swedish cracker bread coming out. But, however you like it, this is a great way to get in your raw veggies and enjoy them in the process.

Open Face Sandwiches
wheat bagels sliced and toasted
1 cucumber sliced
1 carrot shredded
sprouts
veganaise or hummus
sunflower seeds
2 green onions chopped
shredded cabbage
1 tomato sliced

Toast the bagel and spread with veganaise or hummus. Layer with carrots, sprouts, cucumber, tomato, cabbage, sunflower seeds and green onion. This is messy. Some of the toppings will fall off but be sure to eat all your veggies!
cabbage carrot cucumber
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