It’s cucumber season! I know you know how to cut a cucumber – if you can read a blog you for sure can cut a cucumber – but here’s a fun way to spiral cut it to make your salad, cucumber and life a little more interesting.
Yes. This is where we are in life. At least this is where I am. I am now of the age where I have done all the traditional things that add excitement to life like white water rafting and eating foods past their expiry date. Now I must reinvent vegetable chopping as a form of entertainment.
So far from the garden I’ve been picking zucchini, broccoli, lettuces and a few beans. Tomatoes will be ready any second now and I harvested garlic last week.
My pickling cucumbers are starting to produce which means my english cucumbers will soon follow.
But when the cucumbers get to be picking size they’re all going to come in at once and I won’t know what to do with all of them. One girl only has so many uses for a cucumber.
You can pickle them, slice them, dice them and add them to a salad. But it gets boring. Which means one of two things. You can start whomping strangers waiting at the bus stop over the head with them, which would be loads of fun, or … you can grab a potato peeler and have fun with them that way.
STUFF YOU WANT TO KNOW
Fun way to cut cucumbers
Come summertime even one cucumber plant produces enough to feed an entire neighbourhood. So … there’s always the threat of getting sick of cucumbers. Try this little trick to put the fun back in cucumbers.
As they say, you eat with your eyes first so if all you’re doing is slapping together some lettuce, radishes and cucumbers you may as well fool everyone into thinking it’s more than what it actually is. Even if it’s just for yourself.
I don’t do this all the time for just myself but most of the time I do. I serve and prepare my food all pretty-like. Why wouldn’t you do this for yourself?
Just because one is living alone doesn’t mean one has to slop their food onto a plate like they’re living in an 18th century jailhouse. Unless you’re having a theme night.
How to Slice a Cucumber the Fun Way!
Zip around your cucumber with a vegetable peeler for a thinly sliced spiral pile of cucumber!
Materials
- cucumber
Tools
- vegetable peeler
Instructions
- Slice the end of your cucumber off straight with a knife or vegetable peeler.
- Starting at the cut end, using your vegetable peeler, peel in circles while rotating the cucumber all the way around continuing until your spiral breaks or you get to the end of the cucumber.
- The longer you can go without breaking the spiral, the more impressive your spiral pile will be.
Now that I have you intensely interested in new and exciting ways to use your vegetables I feel compelled to delve further into the world of cucumbers. Stylistically speaking.
How do you cut cucumbers for dipping?
This is an issue I have. Most dipping vegetables come with a built in handle don’t they? Cauliflower, broccoli, carrots and celery all have built in handles. They have stems or they’re stiff enough to have a good enough grip that they won’t slide out of your fingers while performing the very important SINGLE dip.
When in company, you know you cannot double dip. Even if you want to. So that first dip had better be epic. It has to provide you with enough dip to satisfy the entire hunk of vegetable you’re dipping.
That’s hard to do with a flimsy slice or stick of cucumber. So here is my advice for slicing cucumbers for dipping.
- Don’t peel the cucumbers. The skin gives the cucumber some strength to power through even the thickest dip.
- For thick cucumbers, slice them across into rounds around 1/4″ thick.
- For smaller, or thinner cucumbers cut the cucumber into 3″ lengths. Cut it in half lengthwise, then in half again so you have 4 equal sized quarters of cucumbers that are 3″ long.
How do you cut a cucumber into thin slices?
The same way I show you here. With a vegetable peeler. But if that isn’t giving you the desired effect put the peeler away and move over to the knife drawer.
Again, leave the cucumber skin on if you want thin slices but you aren’t completely confident in your knife skills. Keeping the skin on prevents the knife from slipping and makes the cucumber less mushy when slicing.
Use a sharp knife. A chef’s knife with a wide blade will make the job easier than trying to use a small knife. With a wide knife you’ll make it through the vegetable in one pass while using a small knife with a narrow blade will make it feel like you need to saw through the cucumber. That will make an ugly, uneven slice. The kind of slice they’d serve in that 18th century prison.
But the BEST way to thinly slice a cucumber (or anything) is to use a mandolin. This is the one I have and I don’t like it. It was supposed to be the absolute greatest mandolin in the world! The best! The very best! It’s kind of awful.
The blades are so thin they’re flexible so if you put any extra pressure on it you end up with thicker slices than you want. The blades are embedded into plastic that isn’t level with the steel blade so the cuts aren’t smooth and the thing is huge. So don’t buy this mandolin. It’s almost $100 and just doesn’t work well.
My mothers antique mandolin that has zero safety features on the other hand works great. But they don’t sell anything like it anymore what with the zero safety features.
This is the best reviewed mandolin on Amazon, so if you’re looking for one it’s probably a good choice and half the price of the one I bought.
Happy peeling.
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Mostly, I’m just amazed at how you seeded that cucumber! WHY have I never thought of that myself? I use them diced in salads frequently, and they need to be seeded first. Life-changing. Seriously.
I always say that…”we eat with our eyes”….so I LOVE this post! I bought a paderno spirilizer thinking it would be SO MARV! but it’s just OK…….this would have been cheaper and less bulk in my cabinet. I do like zucchini made into strings of pasta-ish looking stuff though! lol
Been gone for a month so I have some posts to catch up on! After I catch up on all the STUFF I gotta do on the back 40! YIKES!
Hey Barbie. Where ya been? I’m going to make a zucchini lasagna this summer and see how it goes. I”m a bit frightened by the prospect of NO pasta so I may do a 4 layer lasagna with 2 mandolined zucchini layers and 2 pasta layers. ~ karen!
*kicking myself for not planting cucumbers this year*
In my defense… we were supposed to be moving. Said move has – yet again – been postponed and the silly rural supermarkets are devoid of cukes this summer, for some strange reason.
Ah well… your curly cukes look nice. I will keep this in mind for when my cucumber hunt bears fruit, since I happen to like ‘pretty food’. :-)
Thanks Karen! Love this idea.. Can’t wait to show it to my 5 year old! Maybe she’ll eat her veggies. ;).
Interesting comments today. I guess one could marinate “pile -o- cukes”. I enjoyed the face time today and a peek more of your kitchen ha ha ha or was that on purpose??? You ARE such a tease.
You can! I’ve pickled them like that and they’re good, but aren’t quite as firm obviously so they slump a little, lol. ~ karen!
Hope you grew some dill in your garden. I loved the pickles I made with fresh dill and garlic. Dill also makes wonderful dried and fresh arrangements but split the tubes in case bugs are down in them. Your “pile-o-cukes” looked so cool and refreshing I went to my fridge to see if I had any balsamic left for tonight. Thanks for the tip on curling since I think they taste better – how strange.
I did indeed grow delicious dill down in the dirt. ~ karen
We bought this house 27 years ago, with many contents. Particularly, the kitchen drawers. The house on the farm we bought in Michigan 42 years ago also came with full kitchen drawers, so I have quite a collection of kitchen equipment and tools. There is this paring knife with attachments I could never figure out, but waited for enlightenment. Presumably, at one time, there was a sheet of instructions- long, long gone. Now I know what the little spiral spear thingy sticking out the side is for. I’m waiting for someone to impress.
A spiral spear sounds like a corkscrew to me.
But many years ago at the Ex, we bought some kind of knife which came with a bonus tool designed to make those spirals. It had a a screw that you screwed into the vegetable, then a horizontal blade with a finger loop at the end — you just put your finger in the loop and turned it, and it automatically did the spiral.
I have that tool, lol! ~ karen
I had that same blasted tool and thought I was Julia Child all clever and making a spiral garnish-thingy. I twirled it around with my index finger super fast….until the pain set in and I had blood on my cutting board! Super sharp metal loop made my finger look like an accordian! I shutter every time I relive that memory! I’ll take your safer version of a spiral cut cucumber any day, Karen Ü
Special treat when you do videos! Great to start the day out with a smile. Thanks!
I was so waiting for someone to comment on the boobs, because let’s face it, the camera was on them pretty much the whole time, other than when we saw your beautiful face at the beginning Karen. And I can admit that as a woman I compare mine to other women’s to see how I measure up. Besides the human body is a thing of beauty in itself. Oh, and the veggies look so fresh and vibrant that I can almost smell them through the computer-yum.
pretty cool cukes…..
Were you calling the cats to dinner there at the end or yourself?
I’m just wondering if we should begin to worry about you. ; )
I find that food can seem (and almost taste) quite different when cut or sliced in different ways. I hate cubed carrots but I love them shredded, sliced thin or even left whole. When they’re cubed (especially small) it’s like running into little surprise rocks in my salad which I find both jarring and unpleasant.
You are freaking me out. I just posted this blog post about DIY cucumber slicing yesterday! http://makezine.com/craft/spiral-slicing-your-food/
Love the video. I miss your longer tutorials. Not enough face time Karen!!
Oh my gawd, we are all cyber stalkers, getting distracted halfway through reading the post and checkin’ out bench tops, taps and ya boobs. That’s not creepy at all. (couldn’t help myself Jamieson, I went back and checked). Just as well we are all so well-adjusted and halfway across the other side of the world. If that was really your lunch, I am amazed. No protein and farty radish as well.
The pause scared the crap outta me!
Karen scared the livin’ daylights out of me by doing the same thing on a chicken video, so I make sure to turn my volume down before hitting ‘Play’ on any of her videos.
Karen = the consummate prankster :-D
Never. I’m always the utmost professional. ~ karen
:-P
Wonderful work getting the paper thin cucumber mound for your salad plate. And done without wrecking your nails. A further frill to try is to take the tines of a fork and run them down the outside skin from top to bottom prior to the vegetable peeler application. Then you have little demarcations on the outside of the cucumber skin.
Vegetable art in Canada.
I am officially knee deep in cucumbers. I’ll trick my kids into thinking they’re eating something new with this tomorrow.
Not to be a total “guy” and all, but can we please address how great your boobs look in this video?? It’s not my fault that I’m not looking into your eyes while you are talking; they were off camera! Also, I’m gay [you know that, but some of the others may not] so I feel a little less chauvinistic than some guys would be when bringing up the great boobs. Also a little less puerile by calling them boobs (but not so silly or dismissive as to call them boobies).
PS Are they going to rescind my Women’s Studies minor over this whole boob to do??
Best comment of the day award.
Seriously, where is the “like” button?
Really. I’m looking for that “like” button, too.
Please blog,I’ll follow.You’re nuts and your nuts are nuts.
Jamieson – I can’t think of a single funny/smart/clever thing to say at the moment so I’ll just say thanks. Yeah. I have no children to nurse me through my elderly years but consequently I do have great boobs. ~ karen!
Well Jameison..now I have to go back up there and play the video again just to look at Karen’s boobs..You are a hoot honey..lol
great tip. I just had one tonite as a salad and was bored as to how I cut it… great tip so perfect and you just crack me up… thanks
I will try that to-morrow, good tip
Yea, I was gawkin at your painted brick wall…what was the post about? Look! Squirrel!!
Clever! Loved the sneak peek of the kitchen!!
I have a favourite vegetable peeler too — it is just not the same when I use one that’s got a slightly different handle. Kitchen looks great!
I spy your kitchen… Im piecing it all together in my mind now. ;)
Hahaha I wa thinking the same thing!
I like your niece.
LOL. ~ karen
Neat!
How do they make carrots curl?
Hi Alin – Carrot curls are usually done by slicing down the length of the carrot, so you have one long, thin slice of carrot. Then they’re rolled up and secured with a toothpick. Then they go into ice water for them to set. Takes several hours though. ~ karen!
Thanks, Karen. I tried that overnight and the next day, when I removed the toothpick, the curls straightened.
Hi Alin – It’s possible your carrot slices were just too thick. You can also try this … do the same thing but when you roll up your carrot slice, slice it into 8 or 9 thinner slices. Roll those thin, narrow slices around a chop stick. Then roll another regular carrot slice around it all to hold it in place and secure with a toothpick. The thinner, narrow slices should hold a curl better. ~ karen!
I will try that, Karen! Love your blog!
That sounds like way too much work. Who are we trying to impress with these carrot curls??!