Silly midwest girl

I am probably one of the whitest people you were ever meet. According to my OB, while examining me during my first pregnancy, I have the whitest stomach she had ever seen. I grew up in Ohio, the land of meat and potatoes. A land where cucumbers and zucchini were the stuff of nightmares, plant one small plant and they give you 5000 of each. So what in the world am I doing sharing my version of Asian Cucumber Salad? Well, why not?

I had my first experience with Thai food when I moved to Seattle in 1995. My first experience did not thrill me. My second experience won me over. That experience included cucumber salad. Then I found a teriyaki place that also had wonderful cucumber salad. And I was hooked.

Now that I have two kids, I don't eat out very often. And when I do, it's usually some place where the kids can be very loud and no one will notice. And cucumber salad isn't on the menu. One day I decided to find a recipe to use the cucumber that had come in my bi-weekly deliver from Full Circle Farm. I found a number of them out there, but none of them alone called out to me. So I combined a few. And then promptly forgot what I had done. That was actually part of the motivation for creating this blog, to help me remember recipes like this one.



Midwest Girl's Cucumber Salad

1/4 c seasoned rice vinegar
1/4 c white vinegar
4 t sugar
1 t lite soy sauce
1-1/2 t sesame oil
1 large cucumber

In a small pan, combine the rice vinegar, white vinegar and sugar. Heat until the sugar dissolves. Add soy sauce and sesame oil. Allow to cool on the counter top.

Peel cucumbers. Cut in half lengthwise and seed. Cut the cucumber in half again lengthwise. Cut each quarter into 1/2 inch bites.

Combine cucumber with dressing. Chill overnight.

I like a lot of dressing, but you can easily cut up 2 cucumbers for the salad. And yes, some crushed red pepper or finely diced red onion would also be lovely. But I'm lazy and really just want the dressing...um, I mean the cucumber.