Sacramento Digs Gardening Article
Your resource for Sacramento-area gardening news, tips and events

Articles Recipe Index Keyword Index Calendar Twitter Facebook Instagram About Us Contact Us

Too many cukes? Try baking them in cheese sauce

Recipe: Creamy cucumber casserole is a surprising side dish

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED SEP 7, 2018

Choose plump, well-hydrated cucumbers for baking. Debbie Arrington

Cucumber casserole is an unusual way to use your extra
cucumbers. (Photo: Debbie Arrington)

What to do with too many cucumbers?

That's a dilemma many gardeners face in late summer. Like zucchini, cukes tend to come in bunches (no surprise, since they're both members of the gourd family). Not all cukes make great pickles. It can take a lot of salads to use up two or three pounds of fresh cukes.

My solution? Cook them in a casserole.

When cooked, cucumbers retain much of their natural crispness. Combined with creamy cheese sauce and toasted bread crumbs, it makes for an interesting mix of textures -- and a conversation starter. (Cucumber casserole? Who knew?)

This is a variation of a recipe from my grandmother, another gardening cook who also loved to shop the farmers markets.

Over the years, I've tried all sorts of slicing cucumbers in this dish: Common green, English, round, lemon, Armenian and more. They all work. The Armenian and round varieties, which are actually more melon than cuke, tend to be sweeter and never bitter.

To avoid bitterness found in other varieties, always choose plump, well hydrated cucumbers. (Like squash, pick cucumbers while young for best flavor.)

Slice off both ends first, then peel. (The enzymes that cause cucumbers to taste bitter tend to be concentrated in both ends and the peel.) If seeds are large or mature, scoop them out and use only the firm flesh.

Cucumber casserole

Serves 6

Ingredients:
4 cups diced cucumber (about 6 cucumbers)
Salt
1/2 medium onion, chopped
4 tablespoons butter (divided)
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup grated Monterey jack cheese
3 slices bread, toasted with crusts removed
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Peel and seed cucumbers. Dice cucumber flesh into 1/2-inch cubes. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil; add cucumber and adjust heat. Parboil diced cucumber for 10 minutes. Drain.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons butter. Saute chopped onion until soft. Remove onion from pan and set aside. Melt remaining butter in the saucepan. Stir in flour until bubbly. Gradually stir in milk; add salt. Cook until thickened, stirring often. Remove from heat. Stir in grated cheese until melted.

Toast bread. Process toast in food processor to make crumbs.

Butter a 9-inch square baking dish or a deep 8-inch round casserole. Put a thin layer of bread crumbs on the bottom of the casserole. Fold drained cucumber into cheese sauce. Spoon cucumber mixture into casserole. Top with remaining bread crumbs. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Bake for 1 hour in 350-degree oven. (Cover top loosely with foil if bread crumbs start to turn too brown.) Let sit about 10 minutes before serving.

Comments

0 comments have been posted.

RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

Keywords:

recipes gardening Sacramento vegetables summer gardens cucumbers

Newsletter Subscription

Sacramento Digs Gardening to your inbox.

Taste Fall! E-cookbook

Find our fall recipes here!

Thanks to Our Sponsor!

Local News

Sites We Like

Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3

November still offers good weather for fall planting:

* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.

* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.

* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.

* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.

* Plant garlic and onions.

* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.

* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.

* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.

* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.

* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.

* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.

* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.

* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.

* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.

Taste Spring! E-cookbook

Find our spring recipes here!

Taste Summer! E-cookbook

Find our summer recipes here!

Taste Winter! E-cookbook

Find our winter recipes here!