Recipe: Cucumber Salad with Creamy Yogurt Dressing

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We are being overrun with cucumbers these days, as all gardeners are, and with zucchini, eggplant and everything else that the late summer garden throws off with such abundance. And I come home on a hot evening in late summer dreaming of a big bowl of those chilled cucumbers I have in the fridge, thinking that what they need on a night like this is a rich, cool and creamy dressing. By the time I get home, the recipe has come together in my mind; try this, it’s easy and really good, something the entire family will love!

Creamy Yogurt Dressing

Juice of one lemon

¼ cup good mayonnaise

2 Tbsp. olive oil

1 tsp. salt

1 pinch sugar

½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper

1 garlic clove, crushed in a press or very finely diced

1 Tbsp. white wine vinegar

2 tsp. Dijon-style mustard

1 Tbsp. chopped chives

6 oz. plain yogurt (without pectin and stabilizers if possible)

Combine all the ingredients in a blender and puree until smooth, then add the yogurt and blend briefly.  Bliss.  Homemade yogurt is much better than store-bought, as with most things, and if you have not mastered the simple art of making your own yogurt, may I just say you are missing out on one of life’s small and inexpensive pleasures.  It sounds fussy, but is actually very easy and once you have fresh yogurt about the place you will never want to go back to the store-bought stuff.

 

David Jensen writes the popular American blog “The Garden Interior,” which chronicles his garden in southern New Jersey. Please visit at www.TheGardenInterior.com. You can follow David Jensen on Twitter at @GardenInterior.