Cellophane… Mr. Cellophane

Glee anyone?

I had cellophane for lunch! … I’ll explain that in a second…

But, first order of business. In case you haven’t seen it, I put up a fun health related poll every Monday on the right side bar of my blog (under “Follow Me On Twitter”). You can click on the title to take it!

Last weeks poll asked what your favourite breakfast food was. And oatmeal won with cold cereal coming in second place! Yay for oats!

This weeks asks what your favourite winter squash is. I’ll bet you can guess mine.

Breakfast

I wasn’t very hungry this morning so I decided to try out a juice/smoothie bar I passed the other day.

It’s called simple.

I ordered a smoothie called “The Tropic”.  It had fresh pineapple juice (juiced right in front of me) blended with mango, papaya and banana. Sounded like an awesome combination.

It was… okay. It was kind of warm and the texture seemed a bit off. For the price ($8.50!) it was definitely NOT worth it. That’s a wee bit too expensive for me. I think I’ll be making my smoothies at home from now on.

Lunch

One of my favourite things to order when I go out for sushi is Sunomono salad.
Sunomono is  a rice-vinegar based salad that usually contains cucumbers, sometimes noodles and can include a variety of other ingredients such as soy sauce, sake, seafood, fish or seaweed.

Where I go, the Sunomono comes with cellophane noodles. Cellophane noodles (also known as  bean thread or glass noodles) are a type of transparent Asian noodle made from mung bean starch,  potato starch (sometimes other starches as well),  and water.

They are called “cellophane noodles” or “glass noodles” because of their appearance when cooked; they become transparent!

Dry:

Cooked:

I have tried to recreate this dish at home MANY times, but have never been able to find cellophane noodles, so it always seems off.

Well… I FINALLY FOUND THEM! Yay for Whole Foods!

Here’s the recipe for the Sunomono I make.

Sunomono Salad

What You’ll Need:

100g cellophane noodles
1 seedless cucumber, peeled and sliced very thinly
10-15 small cooked or frozen and defrosted shrimp (you can butterfly them or chip them if you’d like)
1/4 cup brown rice vinegar (you can also use regular rice vinegar)
2 tsp agave nectar
Sprinkle of Sea Salt
1 tbsp soy sauce
Squirt of lemon juice
Red pepper flaked

Directions:

Soak cellophane noodles in hot water for 10 minutes. Drain and let cool.
Slice the cucumber and prep the shrimp
Mix the vinegar agave and soy sauce.
Put the noodles, shrimp and cucumber into a bowl and toss with the dressing.
Squirt lemon juice on top and sprinkle with sea salt and red pepper flakes (if desired)

Let chill in the fridge for 15-20 mins

When serving you can choose to drain off some of the liquid or leave it for extra flavour.

My finished product (before mixing up):

All mixed up!:

(I didn’t have any soy sauce in the house which is why it is not darker in color like regular Sunomono)

For an sweet snack I had a some organic red grapes

YUMMY!

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This (with a coconut and pumpkin twist) is in my future….

Have a great MONDAY!

Janna