End of Summer Chopped Salad

This is not a shake. This is a chopped salad that uses vegetables that are plentiful at the end of summer in Wisconsin. If you don't have your own tomatoes, cucumbers and parsley in abundance, they are fairly inexpensive at the farmer's market right now, or even at the grocery store. Make this about a half hour in advance of eating, so flavors can meld, and so that you get a bit of juice from the tomatoes and cucumbers. I like to make a couple of servings at a time, so I have it for lunch at work the next day. If you try to keep it more than 24 hours, it gets a little mushy, so make only enough for one or two meals at a time. Here's the recipe:

2 or 3 ripe tomatoes

2 slicing size cucumbers

4 to 8 stems of parsley (I prefer curled parsley to flat leaf parsley)

1/2 small onion

1 tablespoon lemon juice

salt & pepper to taste

7 or 8 medium mint leaves, well washed (optional)

Cut all vegetables directly into your serving bowl. Cut out top of tomatoes, and cut into quarters, then quarters into 3 or 4 pieces each.  Chop cucumbers into similar sized pieces, discarding large seeds if necessary. Using a kitchen shears, chop parsley leaves into bowl, discarding thick stems. Stack mint leaves, and cut into thin slivers into bowl. Finally, chop onion into bowl. Sprinkle lemon juice over all, add a few shakes of salt, and a couple of pepper, and stir well. Allow to marinade for a half hour before eating. This recipe is two meals worth for me, but as an accompaniment salad, it's probably about 4 servings.