Crisp, cool cucumbers make summer dining more refreshing

There’s a reason why you always see cucumber slices floating in those enormous water dispensers at spas or as a DIY puffy-eye remedy. Mostly made of water, cucumbers are naturally cooling.

Plus they have a fresh, clean taste, which is perfect for summertime recipes.

I’ll admit, until recently I’ve not bought and eaten cucumbers as much as I probably should have. But when I saw them on sale at three for $1 at my local grocer not long ago, I wanted to experiment and see how many ways I could use them.

My dad used to make refrigerator pickles with cucumbers — simply vinegar, sugar and salt, cooked then cooled, with slices of cucumber added along with sprigs of fresh dill. They were always kept on the top shelf inside of our avocado-green fridge, in a repurposed Peter Pan peanut butter jar, next to the sun tea. Mom always served them with barbecued chicken and a chunky potato salad she’d make with hardboiled eggs and bacon. The chilly, crisp slices were a perfect contrast to the spicy, still-hot chicken.

Turns out, whatever you do with cucumbers will have the same cooling effect. For this article, I worked with the traditional, easiest-to-find cukes (also the cheapest), but English cucumbers, which don’t need to be seeded, could be swapped out in any of these recipes below. The Cucumber, tomato and corn salad would be even crunchier with Persian cucumbers, which are now pretty easy to find, and don’t need peeling or seeding.

Right now, I’m all about making cold soups, and I loved how the cucumber and roasted peaches complimented each other in my new riff on gazpacho. You can skip the roasting if you have ripe peaches, but mine were too firm, so I roasted them to bring out the sugars, and it worked like a charm. Bright in color and flavor, I loved how the cucumber helped cool this cold soup down even further. The salad, with chunks of cucumber, cherry tomatoes, and corn, is a celebration of summer in a bowl, and the slightly garlicky, herby yogurt sauce — a close cousin of raita — turns this simple salad into something exotic. It would also be nice stuffed into a toasted pita, and eaten poolside. For super-fast suppers or lunches, the Cucumber and avocado tartine is easy and elegant, and not the same old boring cream cheese business that we grew up with. In the recipe, I call for a last minute drizzle of olive oil, but if you have pistachio oil on hand —worth every penny — use that instead. Finally, I hate to admit to having favorites, but this is definitely my No. 1 recipe of the batch — a recipe for a cold Thai noodle salad using julienned raw cucumbers and carrots instead of soba or any other kind of noodle. Sometimes things turn out even better than I imagine, and this is one of them. I made this, photographed it, then gobbled it up, thinking about when I’ll make it again. And it’s totally easy. No oven required. Which is another great way to stay cool when it’s 100-plus degrees.

Now, back to that by-the-pool idea. I’ve got my sunscreen, hat, and a stack of books to read. Who’s with me?

This story was originally published August 1, 2017 at 8:22 AM with the headline "Crisp, cool cucumbers make summer dining more refreshing."