Sunday, June 18, 2006

my first garden fresh salad

this mesclun i planted for ornamental purposes was getting so big, i had to start to harvest it.

following steven and farmgirl's advice, i started to clip off the leaves for my first home grown mini salad and cheeseburger, complete with a little flat leaf parsley from the garden as well.

dressed it up with a little homemade lowfat lemon dill creamy vinagrette made with stuff i had on hand...it was the yummiest salad i have ever eaten. i was so proud of my first salad that my husband just laughed as i made everyone wait until i got pictures.

CREAMY LEMON DILL VINAGRETTE
1 garlic clove**
juice of 1 lemon
2 T rice wine vinegar
2-3 T lowfat plain yogurt
1 tsp dried dill
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
extra virgin olive oil, enough to emulsify...

place all ingredients but the olive oil in a food processor or blender. pulse to chop garlic and combine ingredients. with processor running, drizzle enough olive oil through shoot to emulsify. it's that easy.

the recipe does not make much (i only like to make enough to last me a couple of meals) but it has an amazingly intense flavor that you don't need much to dress your salad. this was perfect for the garden salad, as i feel that home grown lettuce and parsley has superior flavor (my mesclun is really sweet right now) that balanced to perfection with only a little dressing. amazing.

**all ingredient amounts are approximate as i am a "mash and toss" type of cook and haven't measured this out yet. i used rice wine vinegar only because it was the only vinegar i had on hand, and it was literally about 4 dashes. i bet this would be great with another light colored vinegar, such as champagne vinegar. my friend was a little freaked out about the yogurt when i suggested it, but i wanted something that was a TAD bit creamy, but not thick and fatty as ranch dressing. i also used california extra virgin olive oil from trader joes (has the best fruity flavor) and it was literally about a 5 count pour through the shoot.

2 comments:

Stunned Donor said...

Hey, good looking lettuce and the dressing sounds great.

R said...

thx. the dressing WAS surprisingly good. my friend was in shock at how good! when i make it again, i will measure out better, as i have a sneaking suspicion that these amounts are too little.