A Pulse Garden Dinner Party

The Pulse Garden.

Those little cherry tomatoes slowly popping up in our Pulse Garden beckon me from my computer screen to the back yard of our office, where I survey the growing green bulbs of tomatoes, tiny cucumbers and little broccoli bushes. (Then I pop those red ones in my mouth. Yum!)

I’m not one to get my hands dirty – Jess Farley, Dave Eliot, and Carol Thompson deserve full credit for creating a gorgeous, soon-to-be very bountiful backyard garden – planting, hoeing, weeding. But as the garden delivers edible goodness, I’m discovering the joys of having one – such as throwing fabulous, cheap and tasty dinner parties for your girlfriends.

A beautiful, summer meal – pesto and noodles, cucumber salad, and watermelon.

Jess and I grabbed a platter and went to work plucking ripe tomatoes (the ones I had devoured first). We found a few large cucumbers and tugged some leeks from the ground. For the main ingredient of the night, we pulled heaps of basil leaves to make one of my most favorite things in the whole wide world – pesto.

We popped open a bottle of wine, boiled a pound of noodles, and made that fresh pesto. With the rest of that ripe goodness – we created a cucumber salad and, I’m not one to brag, but it was fantastic.

So, in an effort to have you peeking in your garden or creating your own next year, I’m sharing our top secret, easy-peasy Pulse Garden Cucumber Summer Salad. Enjoy – the seven ladies who participated in our dinner party certainly did!

Cucumber Summer Salad

Ingredients from the Garden

• Cucumber

• Tomatoes

• Leeks

• Thyme

• Basil

Ingredients in your Cupboard

• White Wine Vinegar

• Olive Oil

• Lemon

• Salt and Pepper

Chop those cucumbers, tomatoes, and leeks. Add a bit of thyme, a bit of basil. Splash some vinegar and oil. Squeeze some lemon. Sprinkle a dash of salt and pepper. Enjoy!