White Bean, Baby Cuke, and Grape Tomato Salad {Recipe}

We’re planning on having a yard sale this weekend! Only problem: We haven’t gotten the items together just yet, LOL. Excellent planning and preparation. We also haven’t advertised it yet. So if it’s going to happen, we have to do all of this in the next 6 hours or so. We can do it! I already have a list of items to put up for sale. Now it’s just a matter of organizing them, pricing them, and displaying them. This is our very first yard sale. Hopefully our unwanted stuff is someone else’s treasure. We’re only selling nice things, no junk! Basically, we’re not trying to unload a laptop with missing keys or pillows with no filling or 16-year-old stuffed animals with slobber stains, haha. I’m going to be selling a lot of my dishes and cookware and small appliances, clothes, shoes, DVDs, a futon that we used once, a wi-fi printer, and a bunch of other things. Not sure if we’ll have any buyers, but it should be fun to try!

It was SO HOT here yesterday! I haven’t felt like eating anything but olives and ice pops, so cooking has been to a minimum. This summery weather combined with the holiday weekend has me thinking about light dishes, especially salads. On a whim, I came up with this amazing—but light—bean, baby cuke, and grape tomato salad. It takes about 5-8 minutes to prepare and tastes delicious and refreshing. Paired with some crusty bread, maybe a glass of wine and you are good to go. Make double batches for a dinner party or BBQ this weekend!

White Bean, Baby Cuke, and Grape Tomato Salad
(vegan, gluten-free, easy-to-make, grain-free, light-in-cals)

Ingredients:

• 3 baby cucumbers, halved and sliced 1/2” thick or so
• 1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
• One-half large vidalia onion, diced
• One 14 oz can precooked low-sodium small white beans, drained
• 1 TBSP minced garlic
• 2 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• Low-sodium sea salt to taste, optional
• Black pepper to taste
• Garlic sea salt to taste, optional

Method:

1. Slice baby cucumbers in half lengthwise; then cut them in 1/2” or so slices
2. Cut grape tomatoes in half lengthwise; sprinkle with a bit of sea salt
3. Dice onions
4. Drain beans
5. Add everything to large bowl; sprinkle with sea salt, black pepper, and garlic salt; toss together
6. Refrigerate and serve chilled

Makes 4-6 Servings

Do you have any plans for the Memorial Day 3-day weekend? Other than our yard sale, I hope to plant a small garden on the back deck that can be moved easily. I bought 6 little plants the other day and they’re ready to be transplanted. I also have some seeds that I might do, even though I didn’t start them early. I’ll try my luck with those. My AeroGarden isn’t doing so well. Bugs have gotten to the basil and parsley and I am trying like crazy to save them, but it’s not easy once they are diseased. Sigh. Can anyone recommend an organic (as in, non-synthetic or toxic chemicals) pest repellent? Organic farming is hard! It’s no wonder organic products are so expensive, they’re very difficult to maintain.

I have a pretty busy day ahead, I just hope the heat and humidity back down. It’s supposed to be 79F today, but yesterday it was 88F degrees and SOOO humid. I wanted to die. Humidity = YUCK! Supposedly the weather is supposed to be gorgeous all weekend—we’ll see about that!

I have to run to the store really quickly, pick up some essentials… like ice pops.

Tagged as: bean salad, beans, holiday weekends, holidays, light meals, Memorial Day weekend, recipes, salads, side dishes, vegan, vegetarian