Recipe! Sunomono

This is one of my all-time fave foods. Its a simple cucumber salad that is served at Japanese restaurants called Sunomono. Cameron and I love it, and I just found out recently that Ariel likes it too! There are about 5 gazillion recipes out there if you do a recipe search on Google. The best part about it is that you can mess with the proportions however you want - saltier, sweeter, weaker (add some water to the dressing), you can even  add crab meat or shrimp to make it meaty. Anyway, here's how I make it:

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SIMPLE SUNOMONO

for a bowl this size (small bowl, about 3/4 cup sliced cucumbers):

very thinly sliced cucmbers (used my V-Slicer, its amazing)
1/4 cup rice vinegar
splash of soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
sprinkle with sesame seeds

stir all ingredients together and cover. let it sit anywhere from 5 minutes - 1 hour. if you sliced the cucumbers paper thin you will only need to marinate it for a few minutes. thicker slices need more time. hope you like it! in my opinion there is NO OTHER way to eat it than with chopsticks.

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Two more things to know:

#1 This summer I got the best tool ever from World Market. Its the V-Slicer and I swear it can make veggies paper-thin. Plus its less than $10, so why not? Here's a link in case you want to buy it: http://www.worldmarket.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4338929

#2 My friend Emily introduced me to Furikake, a Japanese seasoning that can spruce up any thing. She always uses it on rice and she thought it would be great on this. It is, and if you like sushi flavors you should consider popping into an Asian market and adding it to your seasoning collection :) I use it for me but I don't add it for the kiddos.