PEPINOS Y TOMATES-Cucumbers & Tomatoes

My sisters and I owe our parents not only for our lives, but also for our freedom. It wasn’t until I reached the age my parents were when we left Cuba, (mid 40's) that I began to appreciate the magnitude of their sacrifice. They left their home, possessions, friends, family, and the country of their birth, to start over as exiles in a place where they didn’t even speak the language.

For something much more valuable, FREEDOM…for their children…for me.

Once in this great country my parents worked hard at factory jobs and prospered far beyond anything they could have accomplished in Castro’s communist Cuba. They taught my sisters and me the value of hard work, education, family and most of all freedom. We, like countless others, have lived the American Dream.

I guess that is why I cringe as I notice the erosion of liberty going on in our society. Many well meaning entities wanting to tell us even something so basic as what we should eat and drink. Let us learn, even educate one another and then make our own choices!

But getting the information we need is not always easy, for example some of us might not want to eat genetically modified food. Fifty other countries label it as such, but not yet the US. California is trying to remedy that with Proposition 37, the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act
which will require that genetically engineered food be labeled, so that we have the freedom to choose wether we want to buy it or not. I think the companies fighting this are afraid of what the consumers will choose. If it passes in California, it will benefit the rest of the country. You can learn more about it HERE

This recipe will have you making some choices, since it is not very exact...but it is delicious! I will give you the recipe for a normal size cucumber (I used a giant one this last time), but it's all very much to taste. This is the way my mother always cooked, and I do take after her in that respect.

PEPINOS Y TOMATES-Cucumbers & Tomatoes

1 cucumber

3-4 tomatoes

3-4 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1/2 to 1 teaspoon Salt

Pepper to taste

Wash, peel and cube the cucumber, wash and cut up the tomatoes. Mix them together until it looks like you have about the same amount of each and it looks pretty.

Pour the apple cider vinegar over the cucumbers and tomatoes, these measurements are estimates because and I never measure it, I just pour some good quality vinegar over it till it looks like enough, and then I taste it.

Then I pour a little less olive oil then the amount of vinegar over the vegetables. Again, the quality of oil will make a difference, use the best you can afford.

Sprinkle with sea salt or Real Salt and grind some fresh pepper over it. Stir and taste. Add more of what ever as needed. You want it to be kind of vinegary and salty.