Curried Cucumber and Cashew Salad

I like to run. Not at a particularly break-neck speed, but slow and steady, preferably outside near a large body of water to very loud music. The gym is pretty uninspiring, but so is getting mugged/and or/kidnapped in your ghetto neighborhood while running at night I suppose...

I did come up with some pretty lame excuses as I pulled up to the gym this week as to why I should just leave and go home. 

My inexplicably  lame excuses are as follows:

Excuse #1: " I am in the middle of a really great book, and I have artichoke tea to drink, and I should maybe do that instead of exercising"

Excuse #2: " I have taken eight flights of stairs each day at my internship, sometimes 4 or 5 times" (this is without a doubt my best excuse, but lame nonetheless)

Excuse #3: "I think I have a headache. Or stomach ache. Or  sore foot. Or a sore thumb. Something hurts, I just don't know what, and I should go home and not exercise."

 I know I'll feel better if I do it, and I always eventually do, I've just been feeling lazy lately.   I also have 60 hour weeks, so I guess it's not really that lazy... I know my  health and well-being is the most important thing, and that I need to drag my cookie eating ass in and exercise.

I've been experimenting with new healthy recipes to sustain these long days, and jazzed up an old favorite for a curried cucumber salad, adding some more colors. There was plenty to share with my friends for our weekly dinner, and leftovers to pack and take to the various locations I am spending my days during this final stretch of school.

Curried Cucumber and Cashew Salad

-2 medium cucumbers, peeled, chopped into fourths

-1 jalapeno, seeds removed

-2 T. fresh parsley, chopped

-1 medium red onion, chopped

-1 red pepper or orange pepper,chopped

-1 cup cashews

Dressing: - 1/3 cup Red Wine Vinegar

-1/4 cup canola oil

-1 T. sugar

-1 T. Minced garlic

-1 t. salt

1 T. Curry powder

Directions: Combine wet ingredients in a small bowl and stir to combine. Stir into other ingredients and allow to marinate at least an hour, or overnight.

 


 I used an assorted baby red, orange and yellow pepper assortment I found, and it really made the salad gorgeous.


 

Peanuts are a nice cheaper substitute for cashews, and they're good too. The longer this salad sits, the more the curry tints it that lovely golden hue.

 

 I truly can hear my grandpa's voice telling me to "eat my colors" whenever I eat this salad, and I think he would have been proud to see such a healthy concoction.

This salad makes me feel like I could pick up the table I'm sitting at when I'm done eating it and throw it 600,000 feet, and if that's not superfood, I don't know what is.