Summer Salads

We have two family favorites to share with you today – Maw Maw’s Cucumber Salad and Gigi’s Copper Penny Salad. These recipes are really easy and great for a crowd.

Maw Maw’s Cucumber Salad

This dish is perfect for all those cucumbers that continue to populate in your garden! We suggest starting it the day before, so that it can be chilled properly for a few hours, and soak up the dressing flavors overnight. This will make a family supply, multiply as needed for larger amounts.

• 3 medium – large cucumbers sliced thinly
• 1 small onion sliced thinly

Place cucumber and onion in a bowl, cover with water, sprinkle a little salt…just to draw out juices, chill for about 3 hours then drain.

Dressing

• ½ cup sugar
• ¼ cup vinegar
• 3 T water
• ½ t salt
• Dillweed (liberally…as desired) You can use fresh Dill – which always adds that just picked appeal!

Put all the dressing ingredients into a Mason jar and shake, shake, shake it up. Place your cucumbers and onions in a serving jar and pour the dressing on top. Refrigerate until ready to serve. The longer this sits, the better it gets…within reason…but it usually lasts up to 10 days.

Gigi’s Copper Penny Salad

Here’s what you need to make this fresh and colorful salad.

• 2lbs carrots; sliced like coins, cooked ’til tender & cooled.
• 1 pepper; sliced into strips.  We like to use a little of yellow, green & red to add some more depth of color.
• 1 large onion; sliced into rings. We used a variety of cute little onions from my mostly failed garden…but those little rings of white & purple looked & tasted great!

While the carrots are cooking/cooling, mix the dressing:

• 3/4 c. sugar
• 1/2 c. olive oil
• 3/4 c. vinegar
• 1 tsp. mustard
• 1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 1 can tomato soup

Put all the dressing ingredients into a jar and shake it up.

Layer these fresh and colorful veggies in a large glass bowl or serving jar.  Pour the dressing over the veggies, lid and refrigerate for 24 hours.

We always use our Heritage Hill Jar or Cracker Jar to serve these salads. They are perfect to transition from the refrigerator to the table and easy to transport if we are bringing our dish to a gathering.  Smaller sizes of these jars are available.