Monday, May 28, 2012

Kefir Ranch Dressing

 I usually consider myself a pretty good speller. After all, I did take first place in my 6th grade spelling bee 33 (*cough) years ago. And let me tell you, it wasn't enough to just spell the words, I had to be able to say the words before and after I spelled them. Not to brag or anything, but the winning word for me was, antidisestablishmentarianism.

Okay, I was bragging, but I've still got it. (Although I did lose at the district level to a pimply boy with a squeaky voice. My downfall was the word conscience. Seriously. I still think someone was messin' with me.)

Where my spelling skills seem to leave me is when I'm trying to decipher the back of a salad dressing bottle. Standing in the store trying to sound out words is not what an almost 45 year old woman on a mission should be doing. Words like; phosphoric acid, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, monosodium glutamate, disodium phosphate tend to leave my brain spinning and my spell check working overtime. I shouldn't have to borrow my Mister's smart phone to look up ingredients. (That is, if you can convince the smart phone to not keep changing the word you've typed in!) Face it, a smart phone is never really smart enough to outsmart the salad dressing people. Then there are the unmentionables following the hard to pronounce words. And by unmentionables, I mean instead of listing the remaining ingredients, the makers of the dressing use the words, artificial flavors, which either means they don't know or their spell check went into melt-down mode.

I'm going to stick with my sixth grade winning word. It's much easier to say than trying to read labels. I'm also going to stick to my new favorite dressing, Kefir Ranch, whose ingredients I can spell.

Not that I'm planning a spelling rematch anytime soon. I'm much too busy enjoying my salad instead of trying to decipher it.☺


~Kefir Ranch Dressing~

1 cup plain kefir (homemade or store-bought, but unsweetened)
2 Tb. olive oil
1/2 t. sea salt
1 t. garlic powder
1 t. dill weed
1 t. onion powder
1 Tb. dried parsley

Put all ingredients into a lidded pint jar. Shake it up and place in refrigerator for at least 2 hours to allow the flavors to blend. 

Enjoy!

*Kefir is a probiotic drinkable yogurt. If you haven't tried it, dairy kefir is a great way to get some friendly bacteria into the gut. It makes a great base for smoothies~we even make kefir popsicles with our leftover smoothies. Most grocery stores carry kefir in their dairy or heath food departments. And if you're feeling brave, try making your own! You can find cultures for kefir here.

This post is linked to The Homestead Barn Hop.

5 comments:

Candy C. said...

I know what you mean about store-bought salad dressing. I quit buying it a couple of years ago when I noticed that they put artificial color in H.V. Ranch. Artificial color?? Seriously.

Kim said...

I just watched the documentary, "Fresh," and learned that Germans (I think) believe that American's biggest fear is the fear of inconvenience. How true that is. Even if it costs us our health.

And artificial color? So HV ranch really isn't white? Ewwww....

Mama Pea said...

We swore off store bought dressings years and years ago even though we eat a LOT of salads. I'm still searching for the "perfect" ranch dressing recipe so I'm glad to have this to try.

I make our own kefir from raw milk so I always have that on hand. Smoothies are our lunches much of the time. Hubby prefers his made with kefir, I prefer yogurt.

Thanks again for the recipe!

Kim said...

Mama Pea~Sounds like my kind of lunch! We're huge fans of raw milk kefir~it has a nice zing to it! :)

Anonymous said...

You got me with the spelling bee saga. *County Champion* here, haha. Unfortunately, "rasher" took me out in the first round of the state bee. Oh well! :) Many, many years ago!

Have a good weekend.