Dips and Side-dishes with Vegies

Sometimes it's fun to just nibble, and tonight was such a night. The weather has been getting hotter and hotter and in the evening I don't feel the need to eat so much as I do in the colder winter evenings after work. So tonight, the menu was light, simple but still very nutritious.

There were celery sticks and brown rice crackers for spreading dips and spreads on. And for the dips and spreads, I had humus (garbanzo bean "mashed potatoes" is pretty close), salsa salad, pumpkin seed dip, and had the leftover mustard sauce/dip from two days ago. The tomato and carrot slices were purely ornamentation. I'll eventually eat the tomatoes but since there was a little tomato in the salsa, that's enough for tonight.

Can't use black or red pepper in the salsa to give it a little flair, but that's OK. This recipe turned out good enough to let my taste buds know that it's just a milder form of salsa .... but it's still salsa!!! I put the onion and garlic in the food processor and whizzed them first, then added all the other ingredients making a very full food processor, which made parts of the salsa a little too liquidy to my liking. Live and learn. Anyway, the food processor will work well keeping this in mind.

Mild Salsa

1 medium-large onion

3 big cloves garlic

1 chuck fresh ginger (optional)

3 cucumbers, peeled

1 tomato

1 bunch fresh parsley

1 tablespoon lemon juice (optional)

sea salt