Almost Meatless Monday - Earl Makes a Frozen Cucumber Salad

Have you ever gone to your produce drawer and found something that was mostly frozen? I have, but I try to avoid it. It seems the most likely culprits are lettuce & cucumbers. I have since discovered that there are recipes for FROZEN CUCUMBER DISHES! I had no idea, but I did have a frozen cuke! I tasted it and it tasted fine, but to pass the test, it had to pass the "Turkey" taste test (my wife). It passed! It was Monday and I wanted to keep it mostly but not totally meatless. I went for a modification of my cucumber salad inspired by TV Chef Lidia Bastianich, but hers never looked like this!

—I started with the frozen cucumber which I peeled in stripes, then quartered lengthwise and sliced into half inch slices. Into the bowl.

—Next I tried a NEW product, at least for me, called "Salad Ready, Tri Color, Tomato Wedges in olive oil and Italian spices". They come in a 10 oz. can and retain much of the crispness of the tomato. Of course, they are still far from fresh, but worked great here. The Italian spices and olive oil mirror what I would be adding with the dressing.





Now for the secret ingredient: mozzarella pearls! Secret, because not too many people use them, but they are GREAT and I try to keep some on hand always. They are a nice ingredient to many dishes but salads are where I use them the most.

Next, I dress the salad with a store-bought dressing and because I put a bit too much on I used a bunch of my homemade croûtons to soak up the dressing and to give a crunchy texture to the dish. My wife thinks it is too crunchy, but I'm all about the crunch.







Finally, I added the component that makes this "almost" meatless—the crumbled bacon! I bought this nice big bag of crumbled bacon at Sam's Club and it is so useful when I don't have time for cooking bacon or want to add some at the last minute.

If you want to keep it it meatless, you can omit the bacon...I can't believe I just said that!