Looking for a new way to prepare dinner? Try curing! Yeah, it takes a little bit of planning and patience (like, you need to plan to do this days in advance) but once you get your ingredients it’s just a super simple waiting game. Salmon and miso go so well together in this recipe from Finn & Porter. Paired with a fresh cucumber vinaigrette, this is a light, bright meal that will turn you into a curing convert.
If you’re anything like us, your New Year’s resolutions involve drinking…such as drinking more refreshing cocktails this year. Here’s a perfect one that Haru Boston dreamed up just for the season. This month they’re serving a cucumber gimlet, a rejuvenating drink made with fresh cucumber, lime wedges, cilantro leaves and homemade simple syrup. Oh, and vodka…I mean, it’s not that new of a year.
3 lime wedges
5 cilantro leaves
1 pinch of cucumber, peeled & julienned
.5 oz. simple syrup
2 oz. Purity vodka
1 cucumber slice, for garnish
1) Muddle lime wedges, cilantro leaves and cucumber with simple syrup in a mixing glass.
2) Add vodka and ice and shake 8-10 seconds.
3) Fill a rocks glass with ice and strain into glass.
4) Garnish with a cucumber slice.
The other weekend I was going to a little cucumber-themed dinner party with some friends. Yep, cucumber-themed. Pretty specific, I know, but I love dinner parties so of course I was down. Here’s a secret, though: I really don’t like cucumbers very much. They’re one of the few foods I generally shy away from (other foods that receive that treatment from yours truly? Celery, eggplant, and licorice). I wasn’t going to be a theme-wrecker, though, so I decided to make a salad including, but not highlighting, the cukes. I also was in the mood to be healthy (if you don’t count the approximately 6 glasses of white wine I downed that night, oops).
This salad was really easy to throw together and it was a hit amongst my friends. Quinoa has always been one of my favorite grains, and it used to be considered kind of exotic, but these days it’s pretty easy to find. I combined that with fresh herbs and ruby red grapefruit (which, unlike cucumber, is one of my favorite flavors). The result? Light, fresh, sweet, sour, a bit spicy, and waaaaay too easy to eat.
Soon the days of easy prep meals will be over, when you could walk into a kitchen, slice a tomato, wash some greens and be eating in 5 minutes.
Instead, we’ll be forced to wait an hour as thick winter squash bakes to tenderness in a hot oven. In winter it’s easier to wait for dinner, as the cold air doesn’t tempt for evening walks and late-night drinks on a rooftop.
But while it’s still lovely outside, and the season’s produce remains quick to prepare, remember that a raw salad is pretty rad.
This salad is ripe for flexibility, so throw in what you’ve got in the fridge. The taste of raw vegetables are much different than their cooked counterpart, so it’s fun to remember the snap of a bell pepper and the nose-tingle of a raw onion. With produce so fresh I didn’t even need a dressing, especially as the fatty whitefish salad complemented the clean vegetables.
I sliced up a yellow roma tomato, half a cucumber (peeled), half of a mutli-colored bell pepper and one tiny, tiny onion. I heavily seasoned all of the cut pieces with kosher salt and pepper and then quickly charred a corn tortilla on the burner. I lumped a few spoonfuls of smoked whitefish on top and called it finito.
Grab some popsicle sticks, get the tequila and leave the drunk dialing to others. We’re turning our tequila shots into a frozen Honeydew Cucumber Margarita.
But before your fingers start strumming your keyboard with inquiries as to whether or not the alcohol portions are strong enough, let us save you time and say, maybe it is, but then again maybe not. Luckily poptails are highly adaptable. Your palate, your preference — pour and mix your poptail to suit your taste. Just remember there’s a reason alcohol won’t freeze alone. Stiff drinks are meant to be consumed by the glass, not by the bite. Our proportions here err on the side of tasty over tequila-y.
Next time you’re tasked with bringing something to a party, let us suggest a tequila’d poptail that won’t leave you fearfully scrolling through your call history the next morning.
Read More›
Yay for holidays with little actual significance and much boozy celebrating!
If you’re still looking for ideas on how to celebrate Mexican St. Patrick’s Day, don’t forget Britannia’s spicy/drunky jalapeno cucumber margarita.