Recipe Redux: Tomato Cucumber & Mozzarella Salad

Time for this month's Recipe Redux! Truth be told, I've been dying to "redux" this recipe for awhile. It's one of my most popular "old" recipes and one that I make a ton of during the summer. This truly is a summer salad, as there are only 5 ingredients consisting of tomatoes, cucumbers, mozzarella chunks, lime juice, and olive oil. Well, I guess there's also salt and pepper but do people really count those as ingredients? I'm not sure... Anyways, when you are making a simple recipe, the ingredients you use really need to shine. And shine they do in this awesome, yet uncomplicated side dish. 

Here's my previous post and picture on the recipe-

A nice, big close-up for y'all!  :-)

This salad is best when you use tomatoes and cucumbers plucked straight from the garden. Of course, if you make your own mozzarella, well, that would be a whole different ball game too. I haven't quite ventured into cheesemaking yet, so I bought some fresh mozzarella. And yes, you must use fresh. The hard kind will not suffice.

It's best to use fresh lime juice, rather than the bottled kind for this salad. Fresh lime juice seems to taste sweeter to me, and not as tartly bitter as the bottled kind. You will need the juice from about 3 limes. 

I made this just as tomato season hit here. Not garden tomatoes, but just tomatoes grown locally. When Kroger had plum tomatoes on sale for 88¢, I knew it was time to make my salad. Tomatoes with flavor again, yahoo! But as I mentioned before, it's still best with garden grown tomatoes.

Chop up a ball of fresh mozzarella-

Combine everything into a large bowl-

Toss. Season. Serve!

I've served this salad with all kinds of grilled meats, you name it. Steaks, chicken, pork chops, shrimp, salmon-

Oh, it's really good with salmon. Like, really really good. This will be the best salad you make that takes like 5 minutes. Super easy. Super delicious. Tuck this in your back pocket for when tomatoes and cucumbers are overflowing from your garden :-)

Speaking of gardens, we just had a frost last night! Eek! I was not happy to hear we were getting a frost in late May. I mean, the nerve of the weather. There is so much in the garden that doesn't need frost anywhere near it. I had no choice but to cover quite a bit of the garden. I put buckets over all my tomatoes, and most of the herbs. The basil, the parsley, oregano, and chamomile seedlings were covered. The peppers were covered. The hubby stretched landscape fabric over my potato and onion beds, which are also home to quite a few marigold, dill, radish, and lettuce seedlings. All the flowers were brought inside, my garage looks like a Lowe's. I did what I could, but it was kind of stressful. I can't imagine if I had massive fields that were vulnerable to frost. Or if my livelihood depended on bringing produce to market. I'd be a mess. People have absolutely no control over the weather. It does what wants, when it wants. If it wants to frost on May 15, well, by golly, it's gonna frost. 

On the other hand, the hubby and I did discuss building a greenhouse someday. Take that Mother Nature! Let's see you try to stop us when everything is protected. You won't be so big and bad then, will you? Granted, that's years down the line, but a girl can dream, can't she?

Happy Monday all!

Recipe adapted from: Sunset

Ingredients (serves 4):

1 lb tomatoes, deseeded and chopped (use 3 large or I used 7-8 plum tomatoes)

1 english cucumber, quartered and sliced

3/4 lb fresh mozzarella, chopped

1/4 cup fresh lime juice

2 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Combine tomatoes, cucumbers, and mozzarella in a large bowl.

2. In a small bowl, combine lime juice and olive oil. Whisk throughly to combine. Drizzle lime juice mixture over salad. Toss to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve immediately. Keeps 1-2 days in the fridge.

Printable Recipe

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Chopped Kale and Brussels Sprout Salad

Caprese Salad

Apple Walnut Salad with Poppyseed Dressing