Cool as a Cucumber Salad!

This salad is an adaptation of a recipe I saw on the NYTimes and it is a deliciously refreshing, easy and tasty dish that can be eaten alone or used as a side. It keeps for 3-5 days in the fridge, so I often make extra so I can keep munching on it for a few days. It makes for a wonderfully cooling lunch eaten on pita bread :)

Fresh freshness, radishes credit of Avocado Lady ;)

Ingredients:
Cucumber
Radish (turnip works too, if you can't find radishes!)
Plain yoghurt
Garlic
Salt to taste

Optional:
Red Pepper Flakes
Mint

I used 2 medium cucumbers and 3 radishes, but you can alter the proportions of the ingredients to suit you and make tons more of the recipe if you want to keep it for a few days.

I cut the cucumbers lengthwise twice, and then slice them up so it's as if each slice is quartered and the cucumbers are little cubes. The radishes I just slice.

Add one clove of garlic, crushed through the garlic press (or more, to taste, but I feel like one fat clove already gives this plenty of kick!) and salt to taste. This time I also chopped my recently harvested, fresh mint leaves and added them in, mixing in two big spoonfuls of my homemade plain yoghurt. I added a bit of red pepper flakes, for extra kick, and it offsets the refreshing flavors of cucumber, mint and yoghurt pretty well!

Once the salad is allowed to sit for a while, the cucumber releases some water and there is some separation of the yoghurt. This is normal, so just mix it up before you eat and you are good to go!

This salad rocks my summer!

On Hot, Hot Days...

Sometimes you just need to eat something cool, cool, cool. Like a fresh salad :)

My seasonings of choice are always just salt, good olive oil, and lime and/or balsamic vinegar with a dash of ground black pepper!

Lettuce, arugula, tomato, carrot, radish, cucumber and red bell pepper tossed in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper -- yum!

The Avocado Lady

The Avocado Lady is a creature of legend among Shanghai expats, and a not so secret secret that everyone should know. If you live in Shanghai and you don't know the Avocado Lady it can be said that you do not really live in Shanghai, you merely exist here.

From the outside, the Avocado Lady's little produce shop looks like the myriads of other little local businesses!

The Avocado Lady is your one-stop shop for all sorts of produce that is hard to come by here in Shanghai, and China in general. While an increasing number of fancy foreign supermarkets have started supplying a lot of what this magical being has provided for years from her humble little shop, no-one can beat her prices!

It is a mystery to me to this day how and where she manages to source her imported products for so cheap (small, family-owned businesses usually find it hard to compete with the likes of Carrefour and Walmart when it comes to price!), or where this entrepreneurial woman got this wonderful idea in the first place.

She stocks hard to come by produce such as beets, radishes, arugula, nuts, fresh spices and cheeses and, of course, avocados, which she sells at the cheapest price I have ever seen in China.

On top of the produce, she also stocks an ever increasing array of imported goods such as wine, olive oil, jams and marmelades, breakfast cereals, canned goods... and on and on!

Inside the store, the shelves are laden with foreign goodies and fresh produce!

I came home on my bike the other day, my little basket heavy with the delicious things I picked up. I generally buy my regular veggies closer to my house, but for special things I simply cannot find at my regular produce stand, the wonderful Avocado Lady saves my day!

Beets, avocados, almonds, walnuts, arugula, radishes, olive oil, fresh mozzarella, coconut milk, cream and canned tomatos were some of the spoils from my latest visit to the Avocado Lady!

The Avocado Lady's shop is in Shanghai's French Concession at 274 Wulumuqi Rd, near Wuyuan Rd. The closest metro is the Changshu Rd. stop on lines 1 and 7.

In Chinese: 乌鲁木齐中路274号，靠近五原路。