Cool as a Cucumber

It’s cucumber season.  I am celebrating with more cuke dip than a person could possibly stomach!  We eat it as lunch or dinner and I take it to friends, a meek attempt to floor them with my cooking prowess.  I actually stole the recipe from Steve Schmeidler in Hays, but I’m thinking he probably won’t read this so why am I giving him credit anyway?  So, since I have cucumbers on my mind, it is kind of coincidental that the “Cucumber E-mail” is making the rounds.  If you haven’t seen it, let me know, I’ll e-mail it to you.  It’s a list of like 1,000 things to do with a cucumber (and none of THOSE made the list sicko!)  I just really exaggerated there, the list is only 13 things long.  Oops.

In keeping with the theme, I decided to try the humble cucumber for the problem plaguing me most right now.  Yes, how did you know my shower door had water spots all over it?    Well, somewhere in that list it said the cucumber would stop squeaky hinges, and could keep your bathroom mirror from fogging up, so hey……..why wouldn’t it shine shower doors. And just think of the PHOTO OP!

Turns out it does a pretty darn good job.  I hacked off a piece of cucumber last week to try a portion, and everytime I got in the shower, I was like, “WOW, that cucumber part sparkles.”  So I sent Kent to the grocery store (all of the cukes I get from my dad are homegrown and way too precious to waste on cleaning) and I hopped in to see if I could repeat the polish.  My doors aren’t perfect, but then neither was my technique.  As you can see by the picture, I tried it the long way, and kept having to cut the end off when the cuke got smooshy.   If you do this I suggest cutting it down the middle and using it like a soap bar, you can cover a lot more glass in a lot less time.

The moral of the story isn’t that the cucumber is the best cleaning tool ever, it’s just that sometimes you have to think outside the box.  It’s fun for a change of pace to take a boring task and spice it up.  For me, the cucumber did it.   In fact, the best part of the whole experience was yelling at my 13-year old daughter to come take my picture with the cucumber.

I also like to use my cucumbers for normal things….like cucumber/orange water!