it's war

...against the woodchucks who've taken up residence in my yard. First they ate the last picking of peas, then they munched the tops of my baby lettuces, and now they've moved on to the beans. At least with those, they're eating the leaves and not the beans themselves.

I almost wish they'd eat some of the cucumbers. I picked about 4 dozen of them last night. I've been making my mom's cucumber salad which is really a refrigerator pickle with no canning involved. But really, how many of them can you eat? And we all thought zucchini was prolific!

These are the easiest thing to make and you can keep adding more sliced cucumbers to the liquid. My mother used to keep a jar in the fridge all summer. We ate them with most meals and they're even good on sandwiches with a little sweet butter to keep them from soaking into the bread too much.

Sliced Cucumber Salad

1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cider vinegar
3/4 cup water
4 medium cucumbers. thinly sliced
2 small onions, thinly sliced
pepper, chopped fresh dill

Mix together the sugar, salt, vinegar, and water and stir until the sugar dissolves. Pour over the cucumbers and onions and sprinkle with pepper and chopped dill (you can leave this out if you don't like dill) to taste. Refrigerate for several hours, preferably overnight. This works well for a flattish dish but the cucumbers and onions should be completely covered with liquid so, if you're using a deep bowl or jar, you may want to double the liquid ingredients.

It's a great way to use up some cucumbers. But, if you have as many as I do now, you may have to make "real" pickles, too. Time to dig out the bread-and-butter pickle recipe :)