What a beautiful summer bounty. 

A post from Carolyn. Following Ree Drummond’s recipe for this wasn’t quite going to work for me – – as I needed to change in/out a few things. Believe it or not, I couldn’t find green beans that day. Really? So asparagus had to work. Salmon I bought at Costco, multi-colored cherry tomatoes I had; hard boiled eggs are always in my frig as well as Kalamata olives. And Romaine too. All I did was change the salad dressing from Ree’s bottled dressing with a few add-ins, to one of my favorite Caesar dressings, the Caesar Caper Parmesan that uses mayo as the base. That recipe came from Phillis Carey, many, many years ago. Only thing I did this time was add a tetch of anchovy paste, which amped-up the full-bodied garlicky flavor of the dressing.

What fun I had making this. I’d invited four women who used to work for me, decades ago, at the ad agency I co-owned. I’d been part of the hiring of each of them, and one of my jobs, always, was training new hires. We also FaceTime(d) with another one who currently lives in Arizona, and it had been about 20 years since I’d been in touch with her. We told so many stories, shared so many laughs. It was a warm day and serving a salad was a given. I’d watched Pioneer Woman make a similar one. So I used her base recipe as the start.

For me, I prepped most of the ingredients the day before – the asparagus, the hard boiled eggs, the tomatoes, even the Romaine lettuce that I carefully cut into 1/3-cut wedges. I made the dressing, cooked the potatoes (although you’ll notice, I forgot to put them on the platter – geez!), chopped the Italian parsley. The day of – an hour or so before – I roasted the salmon. It’s put onto a baking sheet lined with foil, sprayed with EVOO, salt and pepper and baked for a mere 10 minutes at 425°F. Once cooled, I forked it into small to mid-sized flakes.

Digging out the largest platter I own (it’s really big, usually used for Thanksgiving turkey) I began composing the salad. I placed the Romaine down first, then began adding the colorful parts around the sides, with salmon at one end and eggs at the other. Then I plopped globs of dressing down the center of the Romaine and sprinkled it all with Italian parsley. Done. What this salad isn’t is a true Nicoise, which must contain green beans, and usually uses canned tuna (you can order Nicoise at most French cafes any day of the week). And potatoes are included, plus some kind of Mediterranean olive, usually Kalamata, but could be other types too. And it’s usually done with a vinaigrette of some kind. Not Caesar.

Same salad, this time with ahi tuna, seared quickly, green beans, asparagus, hard boiled eggs, more tomatoes plus  avocadoes. 

This salad was a real winner. For sure. The picture above is the same meal, but made with  ahi tuna – very quickly seared with just a little rub of EVOO, salt and pepper. Since this was a dinner, I used halved Romaine hearts (for a bit more lettuce on each serving). This time I did have green beans, and I had sufficient salad dressing left over to serve it. No potatoes since I try to do less carbs. It made for another lovely, colorful platter of food which was almost all polished off in one sitting. The tiny bit of leftovers I had for lunch the next day. Yum. I bought one pound of fresh ahi, seared it in my stovetop grill pan for about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes per side, then sliced thinly with a very sharp straight-edged knife.

What’s GOOD: everything about this was good, in my book. The dressing was perfect for the lively flavors (salmon or ahi, tomatoes, Kalamata olives, even asparagus). Loved how beautiful the platter came out – it’s a stunner! Most everything can be done the day before which makes for easy plating.

What’s NOT: does require a moderate amount of prep work (cooking green beans or asparagus, potatoes, hard boiled eggs, even the salmon (the ahi was extra-simple to do), also cutting the tomatoes, pitting olives if you need to do that – I buy pitted ones – and carefully cutting the Romaine into 1/3 wedges), packaging everything up until the right moment to plate and serve. But worth the trouble. Everything except the salmon (or ahi) and cutting avocadoes can be done the day ahead.

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What a super salad! Perfect for a barbecue. It’s kind of a mixture between a green (spinach) salad and a cabbage (slaw) salad. Note the cashews, halved red grapes and the grilled pineapple on top?

A couple of weeks ago my son and his wife invited me to their house for a Saturday dinner. Powell was smoking a whole beef brisket. I didn’t want to miss out on that. The last time he prepared a smoked brisket, Karen sent me home with a big chunk of the brisket and I made a recipe that’s a favorite in her family (and now for me, too) for Smoked Brisket Chili. Oh my goodness was that something special. So I made this salad to go along with the meal.

The recipe came from a cooking class more than 2 years ago with Phillis Carey. I don’t know why I hadn’t posted it before – for whatever reason I didn’t have a picture of this salad from back then. I’ve modified the recipe just a tad – I didn’t have bean sprouts (none at the market when I shopped), didn’t have green onions, either, because I forgot to buy them. Everything else I had – and since I’d purchased a big, beautiful fresh pineapple, I grilled it (stovetop) and chopped up some of it in the salad, and most of it we had as dessert.

I made the dressing the night before (it’s easy as long as you have the oranges – – I used OJ concentrate, diluted correctly — and fresh limes). I used EVOO in the dressing, so it needs to sit out at room temp to warm up and homogenize correctly – otherwise the oil sits on top. Be sure to mix it well before pouring over the salad. I was a bit startled at how much the cashews cost – I think I bought about a cup of them from a bin-type dispenser, and they were nearly $4.00. Wow. Really? You could easily use almonds in this, or even peanuts. I expect they’d be cheaper than these dear cashews! The herbs are fresh mint and cilantro. Lots of both. And of course, the fresh spinach. I ended up adding a little bit more cabbage to this salad, so the recipe has been altered to change the little things I did differently. Everything can be prepared ahead of time, except for tossing it.

You don’t want to let this sit – the citrus juices will wilt the spinach and herbs – so if you happen to make a big portion of this – only put out in the salad bowl what you think you’ll eat, no left overs. The dressing amount makes more than you’ll need – but I’m happy to have some leftover dressing for a salad on another day. I won’t have any cashews or grilled pineapple, but everything else I do have on hand now.

What’s GOOD: everything about this salad was wonderful. My son said this was, by far, his most favorite slaw he’s ever had. Nearly everyone at the table had seconds, so I’m glad I made salad for 8 people (there were 6 of us). We ate it all.

What’s NOT: only that you might not have everything on hand to make this. You can eliminate the pineapple (it wasn’t in the original) but I really liked that addition.

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A great way to get a Chinese chicken salad but without the carbs.

Before Mother’s Day, my daughter Sara drove to my house, and we visited. Albeit, shelter-in-place style. We sat outside (without masks, but 6 feet apart). I made lattes for each of us and we just visited. SO nice. SO fun. So needed. I was just sorry I couldn’t hug her!

I made a salad for us to enjoy outside for lunch (it was a lovely day). I started with a recipe from Kalyn’s Kitchen. But I veered off a little bit from her recipe – I wanted chicken, and I added a few other ingredients, and used some different proportions of things also. Technically, it’s not a “pure” Chinese chicken salad. It’s got asparagus in it and arugula. But during this shelter-in-place, we use what we have, right?

The dressing starts with mayo – but then you add in a little sugar or sweetener, white wine vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, freshly grated ginger, mashed-up garlic and a bit of Sriracha. Oh, that dressing is wonderful. I’m sorry I didn’t make more! I recommend you make DOUBLE of it, use what you need for this salad, and keep the rest for another day.

Taste the salad as you add the dressing – it might need a bit more. Then serve on plates and sprinkle the top with sliced almonds (I should have toasted them – forgot). And don’t forget the cilantro garnish too – to me that’s an essential ingredient in any semblance of a Chinese chicken salad. It’s in the salad itself, but you can add more as a garnish also.

What’s GOOD: loved everything about it – the crunchiness of the cabbage, all the different textures. And loved-loved the dressing. As I mentioned – make double so you can use it on another salad a day or two later. No crunchy won ton strips on this, unfortunately, but I didn’t miss them. There’s very little sesame oil in this, but it adds a lovely flavor.

What’s NOT: nothing at all.

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Different? Yes. Good? Yes, indeed.

Over the holidays I was invited to a fun-filled afternoon/evening with part of my extended family. They know I love Indian food, and every so often they invite me to join them at their (and my) favorite Indian restaurant in our part of the world, the Royal Khyber. As it turned out, the restaurant was closed that evening for a private party, so they ordered all the food at noontime, picked it up and reheated it at their home for a late afternoon dinner. Janice and I conferred and I was to bring a salad.

So, hmmm. What kind of green salad and dressing goes with Indian food, I ask you? I had no idea. Since I knew curry would be on the menu, I googled some curry dressings and finally settled on one at the Cheeky Chickpea (is THAT not a cute name for a blog?). After making the dressing, and tasting it with a leaf of lettuce in hand, I thought it needed oil. The original recipe went onto a Thai noodle salad and the dressing, as is, no doubt works well with that, but on a green salad I was afraid the dressing would wilt the greens, and wouldn’t have enough heft to hold up to sturdy greens I used (Romaine and arugula). So I added oil. Tasted it again, then decided to try a trick I’ve read in many other recipe, some mayo was needed. Not much, but just enough to emulsify the dressing. I made it in a glass jar and shook it like crazy and it held together well for several hours.

The salad – as I said – was Romaine and arugula, but then to add some interest I included some sliced cabbage and a little bit of grated carrot for color. Then I added sliced almonds, fresh mango, and chopped dates plus a bunch of green onions. You could also use peanuts instead of almonds. I forgot to take a picture of it when I served it – so all you get to see is the dressing.

What’s GOOD: it was perfect with an Indian meal – the mango and almonds added nice crunch. It was not overwhelmingly curried.

What’s NOT: only that it might not be great with a meal that didn’t complement curry/Indian/Thai food.

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A variation on the theme of a Chinese Chicken Salad style vinaigrette.

Most of the salad dressings that I have made in the past in the style for Chinese Chicken Salad have contained a lot of sugar – honey, or molasses, or both, or sugar, period. And if I’d made this one per the directions, I’d have one that’s similar, but this one contains a lot more ingredients than most. And I cut way back on the sugar. (Actually I used Swerve, but you could easily substitute sugar or honey). In fact, this one had so many unusual ingredients I had to keep looking back at the recipe because I couldn’t remember more than one ingredient at a time.

It all starts out in the food processor. With fresh ginger cut up into little pieces. You need to start with the ginger all cut up because sometimes the food processor doesn’t mince up ginger very well. I have an older food processor, however. So old that I’ve been thinking of buying a new one, but my old one actually works well enough. It’s just that the work bowl has gotten cloudy with use and time, and the plastic that’s supposed to cover up the pulse button has broken off. Underneath it’s still plastic so I’m not worried about electrocution, thankfully. I have a new S-shaped blade than Cuisinart sent me a year or so ago when they had a recall. A few years ago I had to replace the lid because it had worn out and wouldn’t push the slide down inside indicating the cover was on tight, so it didn’t work at all! But now that I’m a single person (widow) I don’t actually use my food processor as much as I used to. I could have made this dressing in a blender, or perhaps even  used a stick blender too. But with the latter, the ginger wouldn’t likely have gotten chopped up much at all.

Anyway, I piled in the ingredients (except the oils) and got it mixed up well. What’s different about this dressing is the addition of white miso, a full 1/4 cup. That’s a lot. And tahini, of course. Not much toasted sesame oil, however. It’s powerful. Rice wine vinegar is called for plus the sherry vinegar. Garlic, soy sauce, even a pinch of cayenne too. The miso gives it a lot of thickening, and likely gives it emulsion too. The original recipe, from Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread Cookbook, calls for honey, 2 T worth. I didn’t want to use honey, so I substituted Swerve instead, and only a rounded teaspoon of it. So this dressing is nowhere near as sweet as most dressings of this type. I liked it. You can adapt it to your taste – use honey, or sugar. Even agave if you’d prefer.

What’s GOOD: the flavor, first and foremost. I’d have felt really badly if I’d made this and then decided I didn’t like it – since it was more work than most and contained so many ingredients. I used EVOO in this, although the recipe calls for vegetable oil. It was lover-ly on a Romaine-centric green salad with some chicken. Nice for a change.

What’s NOT: only thing I’d say is the list of ingredients. I try not to make salad dressings just before dinner time – I get bogged down with making it (because most of my salad dressings have a lot of ingredients in them) so I made this a few hours ahead, and I have at least a cup left in the refrigerator. Am sure it’ll keep for at least a few weeks.

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What do you do when you acquire a windfall of limes? Well, you could make margaritas, or some other refreshing drink. In this case it’s salad dressing.

I actually have a lime tree. A dwarf one that lives in a big pot on my patio. To date (about 5 years) it’s yielded maybe 3 limes. This year I got one. I’m not sure what to do with the tree – I guess I’ll keep watering it (it’s on automatic drip) in hopes that it will suddenly decide to fruit more of them.

But meanwhile, when I was at the gym the other day, one of the trainers mentioned there was a bowl of limes at the front counter and that I should help myself. I thought about taking one (to be nice, and assuming others would want them too), but she said, oh, no, take all you want – I have hundreds on my tree. So I took a bunch. If there are more the next time I go in, I’ll help myself and probably freeze the juice in 1/2 cup portions. Of course, limes don’t yield a whole lot of juice so it does take a bunch to make up 1/2 cup of juice – I think it took 4.

Here on my blog I have a recipe for a cocina salad with cilantro lime dressing, but I knew if I made that one, I’d need to use up the dressing within 3 days because the cilantro gets icky, even suspended in the dressing. So I went hunting for another recipe, and found one at epicurious. Its only unusual item is the addition of ground coriander. And it also called for cilantro, but I eliminated that part and merely added it to my salad itself.

Surely I’ve mentioned it recently, but I dislike bottled salad dressings. I always prefer my own homemade ones. And because I’m eating a salad nearly every evening, I like variety in my dressings. I have 3 in my refrigerator as I write this. But this one is the first one I go to if I have a choice!

When I mixed it up, I tasted it, using the directions as written. I found the dressing just a tetch too sharp, so I added in another tablespoon or so of oil. I also used a new artificial sweetener that I like. It’s liquid monkfruit. I’ve never had monkfruit – – from wikipedia: monk fruit is a herbaceous perennial vine of the Cucurbitaceae (gourd) family, native to southern China and northern Thailand. The plant is cultivated for its fruit, whose extract is nearly 300 times sweeter than sugar and has been used in China as a low-calorie sweetener for cooling drinks and in traditional Chinese medicine. They extract the juice and concentrate it and mine is a liquid in a little bitty bottle and it drips out. I used 8 drops of monkfruit extract to sweeten the salad dressing. Monkfruit has all kinds of healthful qualities and it slips through your system without being digested, mostly.

What’s GOOD: the dressing is very lime-forward – you truly can taste it. Liked it. The sugar/monkfruit took the edge off, but also the other tablespoon or so of oil helped moderate the sharpness of the lime juice. I liked the flavor altogether, and the ground coriander added a little extra flavor – it’s hardly discernible, however.

What’s NOT: nothing really, unless limes are ridiculously expensive where you live.

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There’s still time, this summer, to make this really refreshing and satisfying salad. Grill the corn, fry up some bacon, plus a few croutons while you’re at it, and add usual ingredients.

You will need buttermilk, to make the dressing for this salad. Frozen and defrosted buttermilk doesn’t hold together, so you do have to buy some buttermilk. The dressing is easy – shallot, cider vinegar, mayo, Parm, salt, pepper and a tiny sprinkle of sugar. Plus the buttermilk. The mayo gives it plenty of richness and thickness as well as there is only 1/2 cup of buttermilk in the dressing. It won’t keep for too long, so better to use it and then make it again fresh. OR, Phillis said if you wanted to make it further ahead, don’t add the shallots until an hour or so before serving.

This came from a cooking class with Phillis Carey. My friend Cherrie and I love going to classes with Phillis – she makes the kind of food we both really like. Only trouble is we have to drive to San Diego to attend. We leave at about 4 from Cherrie’s house and get there about 5:30 for a 6:00 class. Then, of course, drive back north, drop off Cherrie and I can get home by about 9:30 pm. Cherrie is suffering from two “frozen shoulders,” so she really doesn’t drive except close to home as it’s painful and she doesn’t feel as safe on the open road or freeway, so I’ve been doing the driving for awhile.

Anyway, you’ll see at least 4 recipes from the last class (this one, watermelon sangria, a shrimp and cheese toast kind of appetizer, a skirt steak one too). I think the skirt steak recipe would be a great addition to this salad and it would be a complete meal with just the two items.

Phillis made home made croutons, but you could buy ready-made ones if you don’t want to bother. The dressing should be made a few hours ahead so the flavors will meld. The corn could be grilled earlier in the day – you don’t want to serve it hot on the salad as it would wild the greens. Phillis grilled the corn on an indoor grill, and she put foil on the grill pan, greased it and the corn browned beautifully through the foil. Such easy cleanup.

Ideally, if you’re making this for a big platter presentation (it’s really beautiful), you’ll spread the Romaine lettuce you’ve chopped up, then the tomatoes, the corn, and the bacon last. You drizzle part of the dressing on top and serve the remaining dressing on the side.

What’s GOOD: such a lovely summer salad. I succumbed to the corn and ate some (not on my diet, but I enjoyed the few kernels that jumped onto my fork!), and all of it has a lovely full-flavored taste. I could have eaten an entire meal of this salad, it was so good. And as I mentioned, the skirt steak recipe coming up in a few days would be especially good with this.

What’s NOT: A bit more prep since you do need to make the dressing, grill the corn and crisp up some bacon. But oh-so worth it.

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A vinaigrette riff – kind of regular ingredients – but with smoked paprika for flavor.

Smoked paprika may be an acquired taste. And really, until about 15 years ago I’d never even heard of it. Then it began showing up in food magazines, and cooking classes, and visiting Hungary, I enjoyed it in several things. I bought some in Hungary, and on a subsequent trip I bought the sweet, half-sharp (half sweet and half hot) and smoked. In fact I still have a vacuum sealed bag of sweet in my pantry. It’s about 5 years old (never opened) – I hope it’s still good. But I’m now out of smoked, so will have to find a local source, probably Penzey’s.

Awhile back, because I subscribe to a free book website called BookBub, they sent the daily missive with their list of special-priced e-books at Amazon. In the mix that day was a book called Modern Sauces: More than 150 Recipes for Every Cook, Every Day. It was a real bargain price – probably $1.99. For that day only. So I downloaded it to my Kindle.

If you really asked me, though, I’d tell you that I don’t much like looking at e-cookbooks. It’s not my favorite thing to go find my iPad stand so I can prop it  up on my kitchen counter to read and prepare a recipe. I suppose that makes me old-school in this regard. But I did order this one, because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have ordered the hard copy (for a whole lot more money, of course). So I did read it – in bed at night, over 2-4 evenings. And I liked the sound of a bunch of recipes in it. This is one of them. I brought my Kindle downstairs to my kitchen and flipped through all the recipes after I’d read the whole book, and I copied the recipes I liked into MasterCook. And here we are.

Lately I’ve been eating a lot of salads. In that salad above I’ve got a mix of all kinds of veggies, plus a few sliced almonds and bocconcini, the little fresh mozzarella balls.

I’m on a diet. Probably one of these days I’ll write a post about it, but for now, I’m sticking to this new diet that has been very easy for me. In the mornings, I eat my regular yogurt bowl (unsweetened, Fage, plain) with a few berries, walnuts or almonds, a scoop of whey protein powder, a squirt of concentrated liquid turmeric, a drop of vitamin D & K, a tablespoon of ground flaxseed, and now SAM-e). That’s breakfast. Mid-morning I have a handful of nuts. Lunch is usually a bowl of soup – mostly vegetables in chicken/mushroom broth with either ground turkey or chicken, or even lean grass-fed beef. The soup is loaded with all kinds of non-carb vegetables. It’s satisfying and filling. I’ve made 2 big batches of this type of soup recently. Then another handful of nuts in the mid-afternoon, and a 6-ounce “shake” mixture of prebiotics mixed with unsweetened almond milk (which I’ve found I actually like!), and sometime during the day I also have a square or two of intense chocolate (dark, 80% or higher). That’s allowed.

Dinner is usually a salad with plenty of good veggies, some kind of protein (chicken, tuna, or even some lean pork) and a good olive-oil based dressing. And eggs are fine. What’s OUT of my diet is any sugar. Period. (He does say stevia – I use Truvia – is fine in small amounts.) No desserts, and fruit (except berries, although there are a few other fruits you can eat in very small quantities). And it’s working. That’s what I’ll tell you. I’m not eating any complex carbs at all – no bread of any kind, no flour, of course, no beans, no grains, no starchy vegetables (including peas and corn, of course). And no dairy except yogurt and a dib-dab of butter if it’s essential to cooking something. He also allows small portions of cheeses. Do I miss all those things? Sometimes. But it’s not because of hunger. I’m positively amazed that I’m not hungry in between meals, but I’m not. The handful of nuts satisfy any in-between hunger. I can have canned soybeans or edamame beans, so I plan to pick up some of the latter at TJ’s this week. They’d be good added to a soup – for texture. I can have red wine or an ounce of liquor if I want. In moderation of course. There’s a whole lot more complexities to the diet, but that’s it in a nutshell. It’s a diet proscribed by Dr. Stephen Gundry (a heart surgeon). He’s the one who wrote The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in Healthy Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain. The conundrum in that book is about the hidden threats in eating lectins, something that exists in lots of foods. There’s a cookbook that goes along with that as well. But his 2017 book is the one I’m following, Dr. Gundry’s Diet Evolution: Turn Off the Genes That Are Killing You and Your Waistline. If you’re interested, go to amazon and search for The Plant Paradox and you’ll get to a page with all of his books and books written by others about his 2 books, including several cookbooks, even one for an instant pot!

But because I’m now eating a salad at least once a day, I’m wanting more variety in dressings. There are a whole slew of oils you can have on this diet, but EVOO is the fav. No cream dressings at all, no sour cream or cream anything (except yogurt, I suppose). I’m fine with salads, as long as I can vary them with different proteins, veggie options and a different dressing every few days. Thank goodness! Hence this new dressing came into rotation.

The author of the Modern Sauces book mentioned that of all the salad dressings she makes (she considers a salad dressing a sauce) this one is her favorite. When an author or writer says that about any food, I’m all in. I made a half of a batch of this to try it out. It’s gone already, so I’ll likely make it again soon. You may see more salad dressings here in coming months. And more veggies, I suppose, in one form or another. Probably not any desserts, though, unless they’re mainly fresh berries! And I’ll still be preparing a protein entrée, so you’ll see some of those recipes. I went to a cooking class (actually 2) recently and I’ll be writing up all those recipes. I took a teeny-tiny taste of each item so I could decide if it was blog-worthy. All of them were.

What’s GOOD: loved the smoked paprika scent/taste in this. Different. Good, for sure.

What’s NOT: nothing at all.

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A winner of a recipe from the folks at Cook’s Illustrated.

You’ve read here before that I record all the TV shows from America’s Test Kitchen and from Cook’s Country. I’m not sure which one discussed this recipe, but it’s credited to C.C. (the magazine) in April of 2006. Here on my blog I have another version of Green Goddess that is supposedly from the source, a hotel in San Francisco. But, the folks at ATK wanted to make it even better, and now that I’ve made it myself, I agree, this version is just wonderful. And much better than the other one.

What’s different? Well, first off, you soak dried tarragon (not fresh) in some water and lemon juice for 15 minutes. That obviously brings out the tarragon flavor. I think I like dried tarragon better than fresh anyway. I have a very hard time growing tarragon here – perhaps our summers are too hot. Don’t know . . . so what I have is French tarragon. Then you mix the tarragon concoction with mayo, a little bit of sour cream, fresh parsley, garlic, and one full sized, good-quality anchovy fillet that’s rinsed and blotted with a paper towel. This is whizzed up in the blender. Now, I also added the chives to the blender – in the recipe it said to add them after whizzing in the blender. Then I tasted it for salt and pepper (didn’t think it needed either) and let it chill. Right out of the blender it didn’t wow me at all, but several hours later, after melding the flavors, I thought it was delish.

According to the recipe, the dressing only keeps for 24 hours. I wasn’t sure why that would be – after 2 days (so I was a whole day past it’s use by date) I made one last salad for myself to use it up, and what I noticed was that the garlic had overpowered the dressing – that kind of sharp, not-so-good hot taste. As a family of one, I would not make this size (to serve 8) as I’d never be able to use it up. So keep that in mind when you make it – only make enough to use in 24 hours!

What’s GOOD: the tarragon flavor, which is part of what makes Green Goddess a Green Goddess, is perfect – just the right amount. The anchovy fillet is not noticeable at all – kind of like in Caesar dressing – it’s a good umami flavor. It’s a lovely green color. Rich. Altogether delicious.

What’s NOT: only that you’re supposed to use it up within 24 hours.

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A simple dressing – amped  up with the tiniest amount of balsamic and  mayo. But loads of garlic give it flavor.

Running out of salad dressing is a semi-catastrophe for me. I like home made salad dressings, and now that I’m a family of one, when I make them, they last awhile. So I make smaller batches. This one was just perfect for that, as it made enough for about 5-6 salads. I often make myself a green salad with oodles of veggies in it, for lunch. I either have a hard boiled egg to put in it, or some leftover chicken. I used to buy lots of Trader Joe’s prepared salads (they carry a bunch and they’re quite inexpensive) but I’ve gotten tired of them, and they also aren’t very discerning when it comes to chopping up Romaine ribs. I don’t like the base ends of Romaine (do you?) so I have to pick them out. Once, with one of those prepared salads, after removing all the big chunks of Romaine ribs I had a very, very small salad! That may have been the day I decided I really should just make my own. I have a certain combo of things that I like in my salads: thinly chopped celery, a few sugar snap peas, a radish, a carrot, maybe a bit of chopped fennel, and either Feta or some of the Mexican Cotija cheese crumbled over it.

This particular recipe came from Sunset Magazine, and the people who tried it gave it a 5-star rating. I knew I’d try it at some point. It was in with a stack of magazine clippings I’ve recently added to my computer. I’m so happy to NOT have little piles of them here and there. The joy of the internet is that when I spot a recipe in a magazine I just go to my computer and do a search and 99% of the time I can find it online and it’s such an easy task to transfer it to my MasterCook software. If I’ve read the recipe when I’m out somewhere, I type it into my smart phone app Evernote, then when I get home I just look it up. I’ve found, after years of doing this, that it helps to put in, for instance: meyer lemon vinaigrette sunset magazine. It will find it right away. Putting in just the title will give you 1001 results. So do write down the source and use it in your search string.

The dressing: It took little or no time to put it together. I smashed the garlic clove first, measured out the lemon juice and oil too. A note about the MEYER LEMONS. Not everybody can get them, I know, so my advice is to use regular lemons and add either a little bit of orange juice (about 15% or so) instead of lemon juice, or add a bit more sugar. Meyer lemons are a hybrid of Mandarin orange and a regular lemon, so the juice is slightly sweeter. I have a very prolific Meyer lemon tree outside my front door that just keeps coming nearly year ‘round. It’s an old tree, and I suspect it’s in the beginning of “old age,” so it’s not producing as many as it did before, but then, so am I, and I don’t use them as frequently now that my DH is gone. So maybe the lemon tree and I are aging gracefully together.

What’s GOOD: the overall CLEAN flavor. Even with the speck of balsamic and mayo (neither of which I could discern) it had a lively, bright taste. The lemon zest gives it a bit of zing. Altogether lovely. Do I like it better than any of my favorite salad dressings? Hmm. Perhaps not, but I liked it for a change.

What’s NOT: nothing at all. I liked the dressing.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 15/16 file (click link to open recipe)

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