Tomato & Cucumber Salad

Need a midsummer salad switch up?  Try a cucumber-onion-tomato salad, Israeli-style, no lettuce required!  Part of what distinguishes this salad is the small size to which you chop the vegetables.  Somehow, when they're chopped up smaller, it makes you want to take a bigger serving.

Tomato & Cucumber Salad

Adapted from www.nourishedkitchen.com.

• 6 large ripe tomatoes, seeded and chopped
• 1 cucumber, peeled if the skin is bitter, seeded and chopped
• 1 small onion, chopped
• about 1 cup fresh curly parsley, chopped fine
• juice of 1 lemon, strained
• about 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
  
• unrefined sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1. Toss the chopped tomatoes, cucumber, onion and parsley together in a big mixing bowl.
2. When the the vegetables and parsley are thoroughly mixed together so as to ensure that every spoonful of salad yields a little bit of cucumber, parsley, onion and tomato, pour the juice of one lemon and 1/4 cup unrefined olive oil over the salad. Stir it again.
3. Generously season the salad with unrefined sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Market Pizza: Caramelized Onions, Bleu Cheese, and Squash Blossoms

The other day I was working in the market and asked a couple near the cheese cooler if I could help them pick out a cheese.  They said they were looking for cheese for pizza.  I began to explain how we were about to get some mozzarella in, when they interrupted me and told me that no, they weren't intersted in mozzarella but in blue cheese.  They were just trying to choose between the several different varieties we offer.

Blue cheese on a pizza?  I was a bit incredulous.  But they assured me it was delicious:  with caramelized onions and roasted pecans.  I was beginning to see it.  It sounded amazing.

And so that's what we had for dinner that night.  I threw a crust together from the recipe my mom taught me growing up, sliced up a big sweet onion and cooked it slowly over medium heat in lots of good olive oil. Once the onions were all beautifully caramel colored, I spread them liberally over the crust.  I dabbed on big chunks of bleu cheese (I used a mix of different kinds, left over from sampling cheese in the market early in the day).  And then at the last minute, I remembered I still had a bag of squash blossoms in the fridge.  Perfect.  I took off their stems, pulled out their innards (someone warned me they were a bit bitter) and arranged them on the pizza in a starburst shape.  No pecans.  I skipped the nuts since we didn't have any in the house.  (My husband wasn't home from work yet.)

I slid the whole thing onto my preheated pizza stone--which was actually a very inelegant process which ended up smooshing half the pizza.  In the end it didn't matter though.  It was delicious.  The squash blossoms add a delicate flavor that's almost like chantarelles and their texture blends beautifully with the onions.

Local Myth, are you listening?  We have a new pizza recipe for you!