My family sent me a care package with some yummy seaweed so my sitemate and I decided to get a little creative. This is where the most delicious california roll (sans crab meat) salad comes in. Quick and easy and very yummy. 

(serves 4 easily)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup quinoa (or brown rice)
• 1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons rice vinegar* (not seasoned)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
• ginger powder (1-2 tspns)
• 4 scallions, cut lengthwise into thin 1-inch strips (about 3/4 cup)
• 1/2 cup finely shredded carrot
• 1 large seedless cucumber (about 1 pound), quartered lengthwise,  cored, and
• 2 sheets nori (paper-thin sheets of dried seaweed)*
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• dash of cayenne pepper (if you want)

Directions:

 Cook quinoa as usual. For one cup of quinoa boil two cups of water, when bubbling pour in quinoa and wait for quinoa to bubble again. Then bring to a simmer and cover for about 15 minutes.

While quinoa is cooking, in a small saucepan bring 1/4 cup vinegar to a boil with the sugar and salt, stirring until sugar is dissolved, and remove from heat. In a dry small skillet toast sesame seeds over moderate heat, stirring, until golden and fragrant and transfer to a small bowl.

Transfer quinoa to a large bowl and stir in vinegar mixture. Cool quinoa and stir in sesame seeds, remaining 3 tablespoons vinegar, ginger, scallions, carrot, cayenne pepper, soy sauce and cucumber. 

With scissors cut nori into thin 2-inch-long strips. Or you can cut the sheets into four squares and use them as a sort of tortilla with the salad, a la Guatemalan style. 

Quarter avocado and cut crosswise into thin slices. Add avocado and nori strips to salad and toss well.

Original recipe can be found here, but we had to tweak it a bit a lot for it to be Guatemalan style (aka with things I can find in my site).

Sorry there is no picture. It was too yummy, but it looked somewhat similar to this. But with quinoa. In fact mine looked a lot better too. :)