This recipe is a spin off of the THM quickles which can be found here. I wanted to recreate the traditional summer cucumber salad, usually made with a full cup of sugar! This salad can be made with just the fresh chopped veggies, or tossed with finely shredded kale to get some fantastic greens into your diet. The green are partially wilted by the vinegar, softening them up perfectly.

This recipe is a THM:S as written. See notes for FP and DF versions.

Prep the Quickles:

• Trim off ends of cucumber. Slice lengthwise into quarters, then chop. Shove into a 1qt jar.

• Thinly slice the 1/2 red onion then cross cut into appx 1" pieces. Shove into jar with cucumber. Go ahead and pack it in, everything will wilt down in a few hours.

• Mix together dressing ingredients in a small bowl. If your sweetener won't dissolve, you can heat the vinegar in the microwave or a small saucepan. You want to taste the sweetness, but the vinegar will still be quite strong. It will mellow as everything sits. Pour dressing into jar, tighten lid and shake.

• Leave at room temperature for a few hours, shaking and turning jar over occasionally to allow the dressing to soak all parts of the cucumber salad. Toss into the refrigerator when you get tired of babysitting it, but flip the jar over whenever you open the fridge door. Cucumbers will be ready to eat in about 2 hours, although 4-6 hours will yield better results.

Prep the rest of the salad:

1. Slice cherry tomatoes in half and place in salad bowl. (or chop small tomatoes). Drain olives and add to tomatoes, toss in feta (if you have a brick of feta, cut into appx. 1/2" cubes) You can prep all this ahead of time, cover bowl with plastic wrap and place in fridge.

2. If you are adding kale, go ahead and finely shred 1/2 - 1 bunch of kale leaves (not the stems) and add to the bowl. I used 3 stems of kale, and it gave me about 2C, lightly packed, and it was the perfect combination of kale to other veggies.

To serve:

1. For the chopped veggies version, drain quickles, and add to other ingredients in salad bowl. Toss and dress with more black pepper if desired!

2. If you're using the kale, DO NOT drain the quickles. Toss everything together (including the quickle juice) and rest for another 10-15 minutes, and toss again before serving. The vinegar will soften the kale and act as dressing on your salad. Feel free to drizzle with olive oil or MCT to add rich, silky flavor. (S version only) This kale version turned out exactly as I wanted, and my dinner guests took seconds!!

3. Leftovers will keep for a couple of days in the refrigerator, but the veggies will keep juicing out the longer it sits.

For FP: Leave out feta and olives

For DF: Leave out feta

NSI: Use your favorite on-plan grocery store sweetener