hale & 'ilio: cucumber salad + cute pictures

One of my favorite things about Pinterest is the food section. I pin throughout the week and then on Sunday I go back through my pins and create a menu for the week. It is so fun and gets me out of the rut of the same meals week in and week out. If I were left to my own devices I would eat the same thing every night and be perfectly content.

I made this salad as a side dish last night. It was SO easy and carried a nice light flavor that didn't overpower the rest of the meal. I tweaked the recipe just a bit---I substituted the tomatoes (ick) for red peppers and only added a dash of crumbled feta (I don't eat cheese).

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What You Need 3 cucumbers
4 Roma tomatoes (or 2 large tomatoes)
1 medium red onion
Handful fresh oregano
1 lemon
~1 cup Kalamata olives
~8 ounces feta cheese
3 tablespoons olive oil
White wine vinegar
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt
Fresh ground pepper

What To Do

1 Peel the cucumbers. Cut them in half and use a spoon to scoop out the seeds, then chop them into bite-sized chunks. Coarsely chop the tomatoes, dice the red onion, and chop the oregano.

2 In a large bowl, mix the cucumbers, tomatoes, onion and oregano along with the Kalamata olives. Mix in the 3 tablespoons olive oil, juice of 1 lemon, fresh ground pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Add a splash or two of white wine vinegar. Taste, and add more salt or pepper if desired.

3 If possible, let stand at room temperature for about 1 hour to allow flavors to meld. Before serving, crumble or cut the feta cheese into chunks, and add it to the salad.

I am pretty excited that there are leftovers because that is my lunch for today!

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And because it has been a few days since I last shared some pictures of my kiddos, here are a few of them playing in the snow. It was the first time Paisley had played in the snow and she LOVED it. She thought it was some neat stuff.