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.

a vinaigrette by any other name...

It may seem as if I have posting a lot of recipes lately. It may also seem that I'm spending the majority of my life in the kitchen. So to clear it up...Yes and yes.

The grass and trees aren't the only things that stay green in the Pacific NW~so does our chicken coop!

 We see a fair amount of rain up here in the Pacific Northwest. It keeps the grasses green and the trees lush until the leaves fall in October. It also keeps us indoors for a good 6 months of the year. Some years it can seem longer. Other years it is longer. And when the kids start complaining about boredom, winter seems as if it will never end. While the farm life continues on, nobody wants to see pictures of our water-logged, mud-up-to-the-armpits cows, or half naked (because their molting) chickens. Quite honestly, I don't really want to see it either. Seriously, have you ever seen a nekkid chicken butt? It's not pretty. And the cows? Puhlease...they slop around in the only muddy area on our place (we live on a hill) just to gain sympathy. I'm on to 'em.

So, while we wait for the rains to subside and the mud to dry (we have a brief reprieve this week), I'm chopping, dicing, slicing, mincing, fermenting, culturing, grinding, baking, soaking, and creating a horrible mess for my dish-washing children. Mostly because I can.

And it makes me happy to give my bored children something to do.☺

Lately I've been making a lot of salads. My grocery shopping trip yielded 4 heads of romaine lettuce and 4 heads of red leaf lettuce. To our salads, I also add black beans, sliced carrots, sliced almonds or sunflower seeds, boiled eggs, raw Parmesan, and green olives or pickled home-canned beets. Sometimes I'll mix up a dressing of some fresh-squeezed lemon juice and olive oil, and other times a homemade version of Green Goddess. But lately I've been making a balsamic vinaigrette that is what salad dreams are made of. Originally it was made because I knew my children wouldn't like it, thus leaving it all for me. In theory it was a good plan. Then one of the little busybodies stuck her finger in it. And blabbed. Now I have to double the recipe and be sure to go first. 

This probably wouldn't have happened if we lived in a warmer climate. The kids would be outside, leaving me plenty of time to make, use, and hide the vinaigrette.

It may be easier to just move...or make more dressing.☺

~Balsamic Vinaigrette~

~The Players~

4 Tb. extra virgin olive oil

3 Tb. balsamic vinegar

1 Tb. pure maple syrup

2 t. Dijon mustard

1 t. tamari sauce

fresh ground pepper, to taste

Place all ingredients in a vinaigrette jar or a canning jar with a lid. Shake well. 

Enjoy on a fresh salad or use as a marinade for beef or chicken before grilling. (Let meat marinate for several hours for best flavor.)

Pear & Hazelnut Salad with Creamy Cranberry Dressing

After consuming 2 entire bowls of this salad, I've decided that change is good.

Of course, I've come to this conclusion after only 1 day of this new lifestyle change, but so far, it's good. REAL GOOD.

My photography skills are another matter altogether, so I'll just clarify right now that this is not ketchup, cottage cheese, and leftover greens.

This in fact, is pure bliss.

Salad bliss.

This salad is fairly easy to put together, but if you purchase hazelnuts still in the shell like I did, you'll need to skin the nuts first. (See below.) If hazelnuts aren't your thing, try substituting walnuts or pecans instead. Which is what I ended up doing since somebody used up all the hazelnuts in some chocolate chips cookies without letting me know.

Somehow the cookies got past me too.☺

This recipe was adapted from the book, "The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook".

~The Players~

Salad:
1 head of leaf lettuce (I used romaine.)
1 firm ripe pear, cored and sliced thin (Do not peel!)
1/4 red onion, sliced thin in rounds (I cut them smaller.)
1 cup raw hazelnuts, toasted
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

Dressing:
2 t. plus 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, divided
2 shallots, peeled and thinly sliced (Found next to the fresh garlic or onions in the produce dept.)
1 cup fresh cranberries (I used frozen, but let them thaw in a colander.)
zest from 1 orange
1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
3 Tb. balsamic vinegar
3-4 Tb. maple syrup (Grade B)
1/2 t. sea salt

Place all the salad ingredients in a large bowl.

To make the dressing, heat a small skillet over medium heat and add the 2 teaspoons olive oil and sliced shallots. Saute' shallots for 3-5 minutes or until soft. Add cranberries and continue to saute' until berries are soft and have "popped."

Place shallot & cranberry mixture into food processor or blender with the orange juice, 1/4 cup olive oil, vinegar, zest, maple syrup, and sea salt. Blend on high until creamy. Add a few tablespoons of water for a thinner consistency and blend again. (I skipped this step.)

Drizzle dressing over salad and serve immediately. Extra dressing can be stored in a glass jar in the refrigerator for up to 10 days.

~Skinning & Roasting Hazelnuts~

Preheat oven to 350F.

Place shelled nuts on cookie sheet. Roast for 10-12 minutes, shaking the pan a couple of times during cooking time.

Pour the nuts into the center of a clean towel. Gather the edges of the towel to bundle the nuts up and rub the nuts against each other inside the towel for quite a while until the skins come off.

Now get to crackin'!

Enjoy!

Classic Caesar Salad

First, let me just tell you, I love Caesar salads. Always have. What I don't care for is the bottled dressing that comes "fresh" from the grocery store shelves.

Second, until I started making my own dressing, I had no idea that Caesar salad dressing had anchovies in it.

As a child, I swore that as long as there was breath in my body, I would "never, ever, ever" eat an anchovy. Actually, I swore that I would "never, ever, ever" eat any kind of tiny little fish-in-a-can. Especially if it still looked like a fish. 

Well, I'm still breathing, and I ate an anchovy. In fact, I have eaten many, as this is our new favorite salad. And as anyone knows, (except me, apparently) anchovies make the dressing.

Just don't ask me to eat a sardine.

Classic Caesar Salad

~The Players~

Remember to use organic ingredients!

4 large cloves of garlic, minced

juice of 2 lemons (I used Meyer lemons)

1/2 t. Worcestershire sauce

6 anchovy fillets, packed in olive oil (a 2-oz. tin)

2 large egg yolks, from pastured eggs only

5 t. extra virgin olive oil

1/3 C. sunflower oil (the best you can find)

3/4 C. Parmesan cheese, finely grated

3 romaine hearts, cut into slices (about 1/2-3/4 inch wide)

fresh ground pepper

2 cups croutons (homemade or store-bought)

Mix garlic and lemon juice in a small bowl and set aside for 10-15 minutes. This helps to tone down the harshness of the raw garlic.

Pat the anchovies dry, before chopping them up.

Put anchovies, Worcestershire sauce, egg yolks and lemon/garlic mixture into a food processor.

Pulse a few times to blend it all together.

Pre-measure the oils into a pourable measuring cup.

With the food processor on, very slowly start adding the oils in a steady stream, until fully emulsified. When finished, pour dressing into a salad bowl. Add Parmesan cheese and stir it in.

Make sure that the romaine lettuce is dry before adding it to the bowl or the dressing won't stick. Toss gently to coat. Add croutons. Season with fresh ground black pepper before serving.

Enjoy!



Italian Dressing Mix

It's no secret that I love salads.

My favorite salad consists of a mixture of baby lettuces, hard-boiled eggs, crispy bacon, sliced green olives, sunflower seeds, and feta cheese.

And while ranch dressing is a favorite topping, I sometimes want Italian.

I'm talking dressing, not a real Italian.

I haven't bought bottled dressings in a couple of years. Not only are they gross, but the ingredients are unpronounceable.

And my rule is: If I can't pronounce it, I can't eat it.

Simple enough.

Except making Italian dressing from scratch is not as easy as I originally thought. After a few failed attempts, I surfed the web (because I'm so tech-savvy) and found one that kind of worked.

So I tweaked it. Now it completely works.

And if you can find an Italian to serve it to you, even better.

~The Players~

1 Tb. garlic powder

1 Tb. onion powder

1 Tb. sugar

2 Tb. dried oregano

1 t. ground pepper

1/2 t. dried basil

1 Tb. dried parsley

1/4 t. celery salt

1-1/2 t. sea salt

Mix ingredients in a small bowl.

Store mix in airtight container until ready to use.

Are you ready yet?

To make Italian dressing, mix 2 Tb. dried mix with 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil and 2 Tb. water. Shake it up or whisk it.

Store any unused dressing in the refrigerator for up to a week.

For kicks, I decided to try this using fresh herbs. I mixed the garlic and onion powders, sugar, pepper, celery and sea salts together. When it was time to make the dressing, I chopped up some oregano, basil and parsley. Mix 1 Tb. mixed fresh herbs with 1-1/2 Tb. mix.

See how pretty it turned out?


What are you waiting for?

Go enjoy a little Italian!

Orange Vinaigrette

Before I share this rather delicious recipe for Orange Vinaigrette, I need to dispel a couple of myths.

Myth #1. While our family eats a pretty healthy diet, we have, by no means, arrived at the perfect plan. I will still choose a cheese puff over a carrot, a hot cup of coffee over a glass of water, and I still believe that chocolate is the most important of the food groups.

Myth #2. Because we eat well 80% of the time, it is assumed that we have no health issues. Wrong. I'm still fat, my Mister still has bad knees, and the majority of children still in our house are on some type of medication for one thing or another. We are a work in progress with the hopes to be healthier, not perfect.

One of the improvements that we made to our diet was to incorporate more salads into our meals. While that was easy, finding salad dressing that wasn't toxic was not. Face it, the garbage in the grocery stores are filled with preservative-laden ingredients; the sole purpose of those is to keep the product looking nice in the bottle for a long period of time.

High fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated soybean/vegetable oil, and MSG are in most.

MMMMM...genetically modified corn syrup, rancid fats and a preservative that makes most people sick...sounds good to me.

If it were up to me, I would rename the salad dressing companies to reflect their actual products. How about Hidden Death Valley, Wishin' For Something Better, and Krafty Killers?

Think they'll hire me for their ad campaign?

Orange Vinaigrette

The players: Champagne vinegar (citrus infused if you can find it), extra virgin olive oil (orange infused if you can find it), 2 organic oranges, raw honey

Using a zester, zest 1 orange into a small bowl. Cut the ends of the oranges off. Using a sharp knife, carefully cut the peel and pith off of the oranges in a downward motion.

Using the knife, cut the orange segments out by cutting on the inside edges of each section. Leave the membrane.

Squeeze the juice from the remainder of the orange into the small bowl with the zest.


Add 3 Tb. EVOO, 2 Tb. champagne vinegar and 1/2 tsp. raw honey to the orange juice/zest. Whisk well. Cut the orange segments into smaller pieces and add to the vinaigrette.

Pour over salad greens and serve.

*I found the citrus champagne vinegar at our local Safeway store and the blood orange EVOO was found at Whole Foods.

Please visit Fight Back Fridays for more real food recipes.

MSG-free Ranch Dressing Mix

I am a HUGE fan of salads! I love green, pasta, coleslaw and bean salads! I especially love the summer months when most ingredients come fresh from my organic garden! But, there is a bad side to salads...the dressing. And oh, how I love dressing. Almost as much as I love the salad.

Everyone knows about the "hidden" fats in dressings, but some don't realize that a lot of "name brand" dressings have MSG hidden in them! Reading labels are very important, but understanding what the ingredients actually are is even more so! Here is a partial list of the "alias's" of MSG: Autolyzed yeast, calcium caseinate, gelatin, glutamate, glutamic acid, hydrolyzed plant protein, hydrolyed protein, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, natural flavor (Huh? And here I thought "natural" meant "from the outdoors"!), protein hydrolysate, sodium caseinate, textured protein, yeast extract, yeast food and yeast nutrient. This is only a few of the names. For more info on the names and effects of MSG, just type MSG in your Google box! You will be amazed at the links!

So, how do I dress-up my salads? Fresh-squeezed lemon or lime juice, raw honey mixed with a little dijon mustard, and balsamic vinegar mixed with a little olive oil are some of my favorites. Then there are the times when Ranch dressing is the only way to go! So I make up my own and store it in a squeeze bottle for quick toppings to salads and a nice dip for sliced veggies.

Dry Ranch Dressing Mix

5 Tbl. minced onions
1 tsp. garlic powder
4 tsp. sea salt
3 1/2 Tbl. parsley flakes

Mix and pour into an airtight container.

To make dressing: Mix 1 cup buttermilk, 1 cup mayonnaise (read the labels!) & 1 Tbl. ranch mix.
To make dip: Mix 1 cup sour cream or plain yogurt with 1 Tbl. ranch mix.

I don't know where I got this recipe, but we have used it for years and now can't touch the store-bought stuff! And after reading the labels, who would want to?