Tomato and Cucumber Salad [Cooking For One]

I figured I'd start with one of the more basic recipes in the Cooking For One cookbook before venturing into potentially blowing up my microwave. At first glance this recipe looks pretty basic. On second glance, it is pretty basic.

Cookbook Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 oz cucumber (I assumed this was 1.5 oz of cucumbers instead of one comically tiny 0.5 oz cucumber. This only works out to like 43g, a very small amount of cucumber indeed)
• 1 tomato
• 2 spring onions, coarsely chopped (In Canada spring onions generally mean green onions, but there is also a slightly different variety more common in Europe that is hard to find here that is also called "spring onion".)
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp olive oil
• salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
• 1 tsp chopped fresh cilantro leaves
• 1/2 oz roasted, salted peanuts, crushed (this is only 14g - I used my digital scale to get it exact. Again, a very tiny portion)

Following the cookbook recipe exactly:

This is what 43g of cucumber looks like.

1. Peel and chop the cucumber "finely". Chop the tomato finely as well. (Seems like somewhere between a chop and a dice.) Mix the onions, tomato, and cucumber in a bowl and set aside.

Even my smallest whisk seems like overkill.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk the lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, and cilantro.

3. Mix the dressing and peanuts into the veggies and serve. (I mean, you're only serving yourself, so dig in.)

The Outcome:

I mean, this is a perfectly good little salad - but I do mean little. The flavours do go together well, but this is a pretty rudimentary recipe - apart from the addition of peanuts, this is something you'd probably just throw together anyways if the ingredients were at hand. Still, it's a perfectly tasty little snack. I'd leave the cucumber skin on and omit the extra bowl - it seems kinda unnecessary to try and whisk so little liquid.