Friday, May 27, 2011

Dress it up

     An old friend of mine suggested that I start a blog with my recipes.  I love to cook, and with a 3 year old son, a carnivorous husband, and a mostly vegetarian me, I am sometimes cooking 2 or 3 different plates for meals.  I cook very little red meat for my men and prefer to feed them healthier versions of "every day" food.  I buy sliced turkey instead of ham for sandwiches, ground pork, chicken, or turkey instead of ground beef, and use low sodium or no sodium salt for example. 
     "Recipes."  I kind of chuckled to myself when she suggested I use my recipes.  90% of what I cook is eyeballed, guessed, or experimentation:)  I do have some recipes, but unless I am baking bread or desserts, I usually just throw in the ingredients without measuring and hope for the best!  The fact that I have been cooking for more than a few years and the fact that I worked in a 4 star restaurant for over 7 years helps to insure that most of my meals turn out pretty darn good.
     For my first entry, I thought I would start with something simple...Ranch Dressing.  I love ranch with salads, bread, vegetables, and pizza.  I do not, however, like the fat content of it:(  Buying lowfat ranch dressing doesn't work either because it just tastes...wrong!  This is one thing that I eyeball EVERY time I make it, mostly because I like to change up the flavor a bit sometimes.  Sometimes I like a really peppery ranch, or a ranch that has so much garlic in it that a vampire would keel over just from looking at it.  Here is the basic "start" recipe which can be adjusted to your liking (this amount usually lasts me a week).

RANCH DRESSING
1/2 cup skim milk
1/2 cup light mayonnaise
1 TBL onion powder
1 TBL garlic powder
1 TBL black pepper
2 tsp low sodium or no sodium salt
(Optional ingredients)
1 TBL chili powder (cayenne or a Mexican blend of desired spiciness)
OR
1 pureed jalapeno (seeds removed)
OR
1/2 to 1 pureed avacado (amount depends on how much you want an avacado flavor)

Put all ingredients in a plastic or glass jar of suitable size and shake like crazy for about a minute.  Keep in refrigerator.  Enjoy!

1 comment:

  1. I will follow you. I'm always wondering about the recipes for all of those meals you talk about on Facebook.

    ReplyDelete