I got a new kitchen toy yesterday–a cheapo version of the mandoline food slicer.  I bought it at the grocery store (it was really cheap), because Wednesday’s dinner menu is zucchini lasagna.  I know myself well enough to know that I won’t be slicing perfectly thin layers of zucchini that will substitute smoothly for noodles.  I needed help with that.

Enter said mandoline-ish item.  I was so excited about the new toy when I got home, that I decided to try it out right away. We had a cucumber that was past its prime, so I took a few swipes and created perfect cucumber slices.  It was awesome.

Five or six or seven slices in, I got a bit of a shock.  Turns out that the cheap mandoline slices fingers almost as smoothly as cucumbers.  I got a pretty considerable finger slice to go with my lovely, thin cucumber layers.  

I was relieved that I appeared to have just sliced a dead skin layer at first.  Then there was blood.  Yuck.  I don’t handle blood well.  And wouldn’t you know, bandaids didn’t make it into the corporate housing packed goods, so poor Scott had to buy them on his way home from a long day of work.

The good news?  Dinner (which didn’t require slices that thin) was delicious.  We had soy-glazed salmon that was quick to cook, tasty, and had a good veggie side of cucumber and avocado salad.  You’ll find the recipe at the Food Network site (and/or by clicking on the picture below).

We threw in some spinach to round things out even more.  And some ice cream.  You can’t be good all the time.