Saturday, May 3, 2008

Ranch Dressing


It would have to be Spring that it's been raining all day and we just didn't want something hot and warming for dinner. Actually for a moment, the skies were blue and the leaves on the trees and the new wheat in the fields were all sparkly and washed clean. The Brain and I on our quarterly trip back from Costco, with a car full of meat, took a different way home and discovered several good roads to ride my bicycle on. If only I was allowed on my bicycle. But I will be allowed back on it eventually and until then I just have to remember where those roads were. Nice rolling roads with little traffic.

So yeah, despite the recurring rain, the Brain wanted a salad for dinner. That worked out nicely with my new cookbook purchase of The New Best Recipe Cookbook from the editors of Cook's Illustrated. To make a long story short, the Brain and I have a deal that when he spends a specified amount of money on fast food I get to buy a book (because I don't eat fast food). It came down to this cookbook, a $65 book that is more like an encyclopedia of vegetables that I know I can check out at the library, and the Martha Stewart Living Cookbooks. I first heard of this cookbook from Deborah over at Taste and Tell. It was her cookbook of the month a couple months ago and I kept drooling over her selections. I have to say there's a ton of information about every recipe and the cookbook details the different trials and errors in making each recipe. It's a great cookbook for nerds like me! I knew that I had some buttermilk to use up so I made the Ranch dressing recipe. Totally delicious! It was a little chunky though, I guess I could have minced my vegetables a little smaller.


It was terrific on a nice Romaine salad with crumbled bacon, hard boiled eggs, bell peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and grilled chicken thighs. Tasty.

Ranch Dressing
adapted from the New Best Recipe

1/2 small garlic clove minced to a paste with 1/4 tsp salt
1/4 small red bell pepper, minced
1/4 small onion, minced
1 medium scallion, white and green parts, minced
1 1/2 tsp minced fresh parsley leaves
1 1/2 tsp minced fresh cilantro leaves
1/2 tsp juice from 1 small lemon
pinch of fresh cracked black pepper
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 Tbsp sour cream

Mix the garlic paste , bell pepper, scallion, onion, parsley, cilantro, lemon juice, and black pepper in a medium bowl. Add the buttermilk, mayonnaise, and sour cream and whisk until smooth. (The dressing can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 4 days.)

4 comments:

Ivy said...

Hi Mary, thanks for commenting on my spanakopita and giving me the chance to come and visit. I've been drooling over your recipes. Before commenting I took a quick glimpse and saw that I would love to cook everything I have seen up to now, the Grilled vegetables with couscous, the sauteed fennel etc., The Middle Easter dish (sorry I did not write down the names before commenting) and the multigrain bread. They are absolutely my kind of food (although having three kids with different tastes, force me to adjust my cooking to their likes) but in order to make something I like very much have to cook two meals a day. About your ranch salad, I love it, I could eat it right now and it's 9 a.m. It's absolutely incredible that I made a salad the other day using some of my leftovers and is similar to yours. I am sure you will love it as well. Shall be back again to read more of your recipes.

Cakelaw said...

Sounds like a lovely salad dressing. I like the idea of exchanging fast food for a recipe book - I know which I'd choose!

Deborah said...

I'm glad that you got this book - I was just browsing through it again last night! It does have tons of information. That's my favorite thing about it.

I have never made my own ranch dressing, but I really should because this looks so much better than the bottled stuff!

glamah16 said...

Im saving this becaue I refuse to buy CS that bottled crap. He loves ranch.