Simple summer salad.

My younger daughter named this Summer Salad.  Before that is was that tomato and cucumber salad.  Summer Salad is much more appealing.

Rick Hymer of Monroeville is one of my favorite farmer’s at the Collingswood Farmers’ Market.  He starts slow and finishes with a bang!  When the market opens Hymer Farms’ stand has plants.  Beautiful hanging plants, bedding plant, vegetable plants for your home garden, and, my favorites, herb gardens and patio tomatoes.  I have  a shady property and the herb garden I buy every year from Mr. Hymer sits right by my back door for easy picking.  And the patio tomatoes grow perfectly in the small spotlight of sun I have on the kitchen side of my house. Of course I buy my tomatoes at the market, but there is something very special about a tomato picked and eaten still warm from the sun.

Currently the tomatoes sold at the market are hot house grown tomatoes.  That means they are grown right here.  But inside greenhouses.  They are still Jersey tomatoes and they taste delicious after a long winter.  We’ll talk again when the field tomatoes ripen but don’t shy away from the hot house ones.  Delicious.

This week Mr. Hymer had vegetables!  Potatoes, onions, cucumbers, peas, and hot house tomatoes.

I had picked up some green onions (or scallions) and when I saw the beautiful tomatoes and cucumbers I knew what I was making as a side dish with my dinner.  Summer Salad!

This recipe is super easy.  You can make it in the morning and it will be ready for dinner.  You can make it and eat it right away.  You can make it and take it along to a friends or for a picnic.

Take a cucumber, a green onion, and a large tomato.  Cut the ends off the cucumber.  (Did you know if you slice the cucumber stem to flower it will be sweeter.  I didn’t believe it either…).  Slice both the white and the green of the onion into tiny rings.  Cut the stem out of the tomato and coarsely chop.  Put the cucumber pieces, tomato pieces, and green onion pieces into a bowl.

Sprinkle a pinch of salt over all.  Pour two to three tablespoons of your favorite vinaigrette into the bowl and stir to coat.  Let it sit a while.

Finish preparing your dinner.  Go sit under a tree with a cool drink.  Do the crossword puzzle.  Spoon the salad into a pretty dish and serve.