I
went to Trader Joe’s yesterday and my mother-in-law also was doing her
shopping. We meandered over to the
pre-packaged salad sections where they give you tasty creations in plastic
take-along containers. They also come
with a dressing to suit the occasion.
She handed one over to me for inspection (I am sort of known as the
litmus tester for all things food – well, that’s what I think of myself as,
anyway. I am pretty sure other people
just think of me as the dark cloud of doom for all things food. Yes, well.
Either way.) as she brings them along with her to work during the week.
Being
the Dark Cloud of Doom that I am, I told her that the actual salad was
fantastic but the dressing that they had to go with it was pure horrid. The first one she handed me had some nice
canola oil in it (if you are not yet aware, canola oil comes from something
called a “rapeseed”. Yes. RAPEseed.
I wish I were making this up. Oh,
and besides the name, it’s one of the top four GMO’s of our world. Canola isn’t even fit for human consumption
but it’s purported as a health food.
Someone has it in for us, perhaps?
But don’t take it from me – do some research and reading on the subject
and you’ll be equally horrified.). She
took it back, sighed, tossed it back onto the refrigerated shelf.
Out
comes another for me to inspect.
Ugh. Soybean oil. Once again, top four for GMOs. (They are: corn, soy, canola and cotton in
case you’re keeping track – with sugar beets following closely behind.) Now, not only are soybeans one of the top
GMOers, they are also not processed well by humans unless they are fermented
(as they are used in Asia) and then only as a condiment with other foods, not
as a food itself. The makeup of soy
causes so many problems – the huge hit is taken by your endocrine system,
should you choose to consume it. And it,
like the other GMOers, is hard to get away from because they are so prolific in
our food supply. I inform her of these
things. She sighs again and tosses the
plastic bin back on the shelf.
The
third comes out and this one also has some canola in it. Poor lady.
I am nearly deflating her with troubling information. Now, as I mentioned at the first, the actual
salad doesn’t have anything wrong with it per se, it’s just the ingredients to
the dressing. I suggest to her that she
simply make some dressing and use the rest of the ingredients.
(Now,
to be fair, Trader Joe has told me that they do not use GMO sources. I am glad for that but wouldn’t consume
regular soy or canola anyway, so I’m back to where I started.)
“Make
dressing?” She says, somewhat
incredulously. “I don’t know how to do
that!”
Herein
lies the problem. I am not sure where
you are, but here in these United States, people picture dressing and up comes
an image of Paul Newman’s or Brianna’s or (oh please NO) Hidden Valley Ranch
(you know I just DIED writing that) on their local grocery shelf. Nobody knows (okay, not NOBODY, but fairly
close to nobody) that you can make dressing in about four seconds with things
you already have in your cupboard.
Our
easy-living world has made it so that people are even deceived about making a
simple salad dressing – that it must be difficult, complicated and filled with
ingredients they certainly don’t have in their home. Now this is actually true if you were trying
to use the ingredients of a commercial dressing – what, with all that TBHQ and
BHT and partially hydrogenated poison oils and stuff. You simply don’t have those lying around the
kitchen. Now if you worked in like a
poison factory or something, you could def get your mitts on that, but really,
only a handful of people work at poison factories that I know anyway, so it’s
not that common. Anyway, I’m pretty sure
you’d like to do without those things.
Unless you like boiling cauldrons and butane and plastics and stuff for
your salad (hello, scarypants.).
So,
what to do, what to do. I know. How about some simple recipes for dressings
that you can make up in a jiffy?
Excellent.
Here’s
one I had on my snack (a baby greens salad) last night (and just so you know, I
really don’t usually think of salad as a snack, but I was so influenced by
Martha Stewart making like five different kinds of veggies on her show that I
couldn’t resist going to the kitchen to get me’self a bowl full of
greens.). All I used was: olive oil,
good quality balsamic vinegar, a drip of raw honey and a twist of salt and
freshly ground peppercorns. It was zero
percent difficult and it was fabulous.
As
far as exact measurements, I have not the slightest idea. What shall ensue is my best guess.
Ms.
Daisy’s Dressing (for two servings)
1/8-1/4
cup olive oil
3
tsp. balsamic vinegar
A
blob of honey (1 Tbsp.?)
A
crunch of celtic sea salt
A
crunch of black peppercorns
Combine
and shake it, c’mon, c’mon, shake, shake it.
I
have another dressing that I like to use, but I didn’t make it up myself. I had it first about 8 years ago at a baby
shower and it was heavenly. You could
pretty much eat it like soup. But you
would get so sick because who in their right mind would eat dressing like
soup? I digress. The ingredients:
A
Baby Shower Dressing, modified by Ms. Daisy
½
cup mayonnaise (you can use your homemade version or the grocery store standby)
¼
cup cream
¼
cup sugar or honey (you can mess with this proportion as you like it)
1
Tbsp. sour cream
2
Tbsp. Poppy seeds
2
Tbsp. red wine vinegar
Combine
these lovely ingredients in a jar, shake it until your arm hurts and all is
mixed. If it is looking too thick, add a
few drops of water until it is your desired consistency.
Either
one of these are fantastic for a mixed greens salad. My grandmother-in-law hates eating salad but
will eat bowlfuls of it if she can have this dressing.
There
are so many more dressing recipes out there and I think you should do yourself
a favor. Run out of what you’ve got and
get stuck with making something from scratch.
You’ll be so pleased with yourself that you actually know how to do it,
you’ll enjoy your salad all the more.
Try
it, you just might like it!
Peace,
love and pass that salad bowl, please,
Ms.
Daisy
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