Making your own salad dressing is easy, healthy and cheap.
Salad dressings in my book are just a ratio of: fat/acid/seasoning. I like mine a bit more acidic than some, so I use equal parts fat/acid, whisk and season to taste.
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Balsamic vinaigrette:
balsamic vinegar
olive oil
salt and pepper
sugar or honey (optional)
Honey Mustard:
honey
mustard (yellow or brown or a mixture of the two)
olive oil
lemon juice (optional)
black pepper
Caesar:
mayo
white vinegar
salt and pepper
a few drops of worchestershire
chopped garlic
Parmesan cheese
a splash of milk to thin it out if you need to
(they say anchovies too, but I've never used them)
*Substitutes for the acid part are: lemon juice, lime juice, pickle or caper brine, other vinegars like rice wine or red
*A sub for the fat can be bacon drippings (great over spinach).
*Fun add-ins for acid are: hot sauce, capers, use season salt instead of regular salt, wasabi paste, fresh/dried herbs... the list goes on.
My New Roots also gave a great corn salsa recipe that would be a delicious substitution for salad dressing. Or you could use the dressing recipe she gives to top the salsa as a salad pairing.
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And the cocktail: Mojito
Ingredients: Mint, rum, soda/sparkling water, simple syrup, lime
Put torn mint leaves, rum (I just pour from the bottle and count to 3 for each serving) simple syrup and squeeze lime halves (squeeze like photo below, using a fork, to get the most juice) into a shaker with ice and shakey-shakey.
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Strain from shaker over ice and top with a couple glugs of sparkling water.
Low cal, refreshing and cheap if you make your own simple syrup and grow your own mint. Ba-da-boom.
I have an abundance of mint growing in a pot on my back deck thanks to my MIL (no, really, thanks!)
Here's to getting all dressy! *clink
