Two easy cold vegetable dishes

Cabbage Salad

When I go to a Japanese restaurant, I always like their fine-chopped cabbage salad.  A few year's ago, I learned from a colleague a Japanese Ramen Cabbage Salad, I made it several times, but the ramen got soggy if you don't eat it right away.  So, I simplified the recipe a bit, papa likes it a lot :)
 
Ingredients:

1. Half of a cabbage
2. olive oil 2Tbsp (or vegetable oil)
3. honey 2 Tbsp
4. Rice vinegar 2 Tbsp
5. Salt 2 tsp
6. White roasted sesame (optional)

Steps:

1.  Cut the cabbage into 2 quarters, wash it
2.  Cut the cabbage leaves horizontally into thin strips, the thinner the better
3.  Add salt and put it in the refrigerator for three hours.
4. Drain the liquid from the cabbage.  Add #2, #3, #4 and mix it well.  You might want to mix #3 and #4 first to make the honey thinner. 
5. Sprinkler the sesame seeds before serve. 

Note, all the ingredient quantities are for reference only.  Always taste it and adjust the seasoning to your taste.  You can keep this dish for a week and still taste good.  If you don't like the taste of the olive oil, use vegetable oil instead.

Lotus Roots Cold Dish

This is again a very simple cold dish.  But the lotus roots can only be found in Chinese supermarkets in areas densely populated with Chinese such as LA.  I think Fall is the season for lotus roots.  They are very inexpensive and tasty around this time.

Ingredients:

1. Three segments of lotus roots
2. Rice Vinegar 1.5 Tsp
3. Sugar 1 Tsp
4. Sesame oil 1Tsp
5. some salt
6. mashed garlic (optional)

Steps:

1. remove the skin using a peel remover and cut off both sides of the lotus.
2. Cut the lotus horizontally into very thin slices.
3. Put the slices in cold water, otherwise, it will turn pink.
4.  Heat water in a pot and cook the lotus roots for 2-3 minutes.  (add a little salt in the water)
5.  Rinse the lotus root with cold water until it is cold, drain the water.
6. Add #2 - #6 and mix it well.  Adjust the seasoning to your taste.  Chill and serve. It is supposed to taste sweet and sour, whether you want it in the sweet side or sour side depends on  your personal preference.

In this photo, I added some gojis and dried jujubes for some color.  It is purely decorative.