I don’t understand why some people don’t care for cucumbers. I love them! They’re crisp, cool, and yummy. In fact, as I was stuck in traffic on the way home from work tonight, trying to decide if I felt like stopping by the grocery store to pick up lettuce to make a salad to accompany the soup I planned to make, I realized the part of the salad I was really craving was just the cucumber, and since I had a cucumber at home and traffic was really irritating me, I decided to forgo the lettuce and just make a cucumber salad.

I wanted to dress it up a little more than just oil and vinegar, and I don’t tend to keep bottled salad dressings on hand because I usually just whip them up as needed, so I had to make one. A standard Italian dressing seemed apropos, if not necessarily creative. I really liked this combination for the dressing, though, so I wrote it down.

Italian Dressing

1/4 cup flax or olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried red bell pepper flakes
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp flaked (Maldon) or sea salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/8 tsp chili flakes

Reconstitute the red bell pepper flakes by soaking in hot water for 2 minutes. Whisk all ingredients together.

It’s pretty hard to photograph a bowl of Italian dressing and have it look like anything.

This dressing would be good on any tossed salad, or try it on:

Simple Cucumber Salad

1 cucumber, thinly sliced (on a mandoline if possible)
1/2 white or yellow onion, thinly sliced
3 Tbsp Italian dressing

Toss all ingredients together and chill for at least a couple of hours.

The mandoline …

… is one of the things Mark has gifted me with for no reason. He just sometimes randomly comes home with an expensive present. SORRY, LADIES – and gentlemen – HE’S TAKEN. The mandoline is a real boon for making very thin, very uniform slices.

Here’s the salad after chilling, when the cucumber slices have relaxed: