I asked...

... and you delivered. I have an over-abundance of cucumbers growing in my garden this year (last week alone I picked 8 cucumbers, and they aren't small). I think that brings my total up to 36 cucumbers in the past month. And I mean, would you look at that 1 lonely, pitiful jalapeno pepper - pretty pathetic if you ask me...

Anyway, as I was saying, I may not have a whole lot of anything else growing, but I do have a lot of cucumbers. And when I ran out of ways to prepare and eat them, I asked you all for recipes. And well, you sent them to me. Thanks! So now, I'd like to share with you some of the cucumber recipes I've made over the past week.

Lemon Cucumber Water - This idea was sent to me by my friend, Sarah T. I tried it, and I liked it! Very easy and extremely refreshing on a hot summer day.

Greek Salad - This recipe was sent to me by my friend Paula W. I made this for my in-laws over the July 4th weekend, and they gobbled it up. And after they left, I made it again, all for myself to enjoy! :-) But the second time I made it, I used green olives because I was out of black, and I forgot to add the feta cheese (2nd picture below). But it was still yummy and I loved every bite of it!

Greek Salad

5 medium tomatoes

2 cucumbers

1 small red onion

18 Calamata olives

1 - 8oz. package feta cheese

Dressing:

3 Tablespoons red wine vinegar

4 Tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

Cut the tomatoes into wedges. Peel and seed the cucumbers and cut into chunks. Cut the red onion into slices and separate into rings. Crumble up the feta cheese. Then add everything together, including the olives. Mix the dressing and add to the salad right before serving.

Rachael Ray's Crunchy Tuna Burgers - Now then, you might be asking yourself what Tuna Burgers have to do with cucumbers. Well, the Tuna Burgers themselves don't have anything to do with cucumbers. But the Asian Hot Sweet Pickle Salad that accompanies the Tuna Burgers have a lot to do with cucumbers. These recipes were sent to me by my sister, Nina C. I will start off by telling you all that the onion rolls I bought to put the tuna burgers on had molded while sitting on my counter top - bought them on a Thursday, molded by Saturday - so I didn't use them for obvious reasons. I was not happy about that, but I pressed on and decided to serve the tuna burgers on plain wheat bread (see the picture above). The burgers and pickle salad were both delicious. And the flavors were outstanding!

Tips I'd like to offer: The tuna burger patties were very moist and crumbly. I added about 1/2 cup of bread crumbs to make them stick together better before frying them. I would also suggest putting a lid on the frying pan when you're cooking the tuna burgers. They popped and sizzled a lot in the pan (the pan I was frying the patties in did not have a lid - bad move on my part).

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You might also notice in the picture above that I made some Cucumber-Dill Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes. This idea was sent to me by my friend Stephenie R. They tasted great as a side dish with the Tuna Burgers. I really enjoyed them!

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Shrimp Ceviche - This idea was also sent to me by my sister, Nina C. I liked this recipe in particular because it recommended boiling the shrimp to kill possible bacteria before marinating the shrimp in the juices. This recipe was quite easy to make, and is also very refreshing on a hot summer day. But a word of warning to anyone with sensitive taste-buds, the Serrano pepper was pretty spicy... Good, but spicy...

Chicken Gyros with Tzatziki - One of my cousins, Shelby S., suggested that I look on the http://www.epicurious.com/ website for cucumber recipes. Great tip, Shelby! Thanks!!! Because they have 596 cucumber recipes on there. Who knew there are so many recipes with cucumbers in them? Not I... Anyway, from all of those recipes I decided to make Chicken Gyros with Tzatziki. You might be asking yourself, "What in the world is tzatziki?" Well, it's that dip that they put on Greek Gyros. I used this recipe to make the Chicken Gyros for dinner last night, and they turned out really good. I liked this recipe because it called for ingredients that I tend to always have in my kitchen (chicken, onions, olive oil...). But I didn't like the tzatziki recipe that was included with the chicken gyro recipe because it turned out frothy and watery. Not good... So I used this other recipe for the tzatziki called Cucumber Yogurt Dip. Same basic ingredients in both recipes. But the Cucumber Yogurt Dip recipe tells you how to drain all the extra liquid out of the yogurt first. That's why I prefer that recipe over the one included with the gyro recipe. Very easy and tasty, and Avery helped me prepare everything too, which made this recipe even better!

Tomato Cucumber Gazpacho - I also got this recipe from the http://www.epicurious.com/ website. It was a lot of work, and it made a ton of soup. So maybe next time I might cut the recipe in half. But Hector and I gobbled it up. I love soup, but come on, who wants to eat hot soup on a hot summer day? That's the beauty of this soup, which is served cold. I think this is quite possibly the next best thing to iced coffee. Just my opinion...

And believe it or not, I still have 5 cucumbers left and more growing in the garden. So please send me some more of your tried-and-true recipes with cucumbers in them. Next week, I'm going to try my hand at making deconstructed sushi with a recipe called California Roll Salad. I got this idea from my friend, Gina O. Can't wait to try it!