Summer abounds with lush, juicy, crunchy, yummy produce. A simple salad dressing, lite and tasty so as not to overwhelm the taste of the amazing fruits and veggies, is essential in the kitchen.
Commercial salad dressings are full of garbage, fake ingredients, that do not nourish your beautiful body cells.
Making a salad dressing, from scratch, is terribly simple AND you will know every ingredient that goes into making it (and into your body!). You can create a cell nourishing, heavenly tasting salad dressing in less than 30 minutes. (This includes picking the fresh herbs and rinsing them off!)
Have a quart size, wide mouth canning jar, on hand for the finished product.
- Pour 2 cups raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar (ACV) into your blender.
- Skip outside for some fresh herbs. Yes, it is important to skip. When we create food from a happy, loving space, our energy infuses the food and nourishes all who eat it. Go ahead, skip.
- At home I skip to pick: basil, rosemary, thyme, oregano, parsley, cilantro, mint, and dill. Today, I am writing from my family's camp in the ADK Mts. I have to go with what is on hand: my rogue oregano and thyme plants all over in the lawn, wild mint, dandelion greens, and raspberry and strawberry leaves. Shh, don't tell my kids about the wild stuff, they might freak out.
My Friend Basil, my Hornbeck Canoe, and an ADK lake... does it get better?
- Pick big handfuls of herbs and remove all bugs. Despite the bugs lending a 'lil extra protein to the dressing; the bugs prefer to be left outside with their lives intact. Rinse the herbs and put into the blender with the vinegar. (By the way, at home I use local ACV from Martin's Farm Stand. I love how there is always a big gob of the "mother" on the bottom of the gallon jug of ACV. This can be used to ferment another batch of AVC. I tried feeding it to my kids on a spoon. Seriously, it is like sauerkraut or yogurt... good for the gut. I got it past their mouths once. I was threatened, by both my sons, if I ever tried that slimy trick again, well it was not a pretty threat! I just eat it myself and figure some day they will come around to Mom's holistic way of eating!)
- Put cover on the blender. This is a very important step. If left undone, it can be a catastrophe in the kitchen... green liquid dripping off the ceiling in a circle above your head. Trust me, I know this to be true!
- Blend into a green, foaming puree.
- Pour into quart canning jar.
- Stir with a spoon to calm the foaming green stuff. It will seem like it has swollen to fill the whole jar but it will calm down.
- Add a good squeeze of organic, yellow mustard. I would say about 1 tbsp. More mustard will not be an issue.
- Pour in some organic, extra virgin olive oil to fill jar. No, the olive oil featured below is not organic. It is from Italy where Monsanto has not created their death grip on food! I do not put the olive oil into the blender because it makes the blender an oily mess to clean. I simply rinse the green, herbed vinegar stuff out of the blender and drink. No soap or hot water required for clean up.
- Voila'! Dressing fit for fresh, local produce nourishing your cells!
Optional ingredients: unrefined sea salt by the pinch or two and either local, raw honey or local, maple syrup. Maybe a tbsp. of the sweetener. Maple syrup will blend in at any time in the making process. If using honey, add honey to the vinegar herb puree when blending, as it mixes together better.
To use: Use a hefty, long handled soup or serving spoon. Remove jar cover and stir well. Remove a big spoonful as you are stirring. This keeps a better blend of oil to vinegar, otherwise the oil rises to the top quickly when you stop stirring. This is fine, you want this effect. Commercial dressings stay blended because they have chemical binder ingredients.
Storage: I leave my jar on the storage shelf under my kitchen table, no refrigeration required. AND it will last until you use it all up. Vinegar preserves!