So I'll start off with something nice and simple. A salad dressing.
Last night, I was in the mood for a salad but had a bunch of random ingredients and not quite sure where to put them. I had bibb lettuce, a tomato, goat cheese, a red onion, walnuts, a red pepper, blue cheese, mushrooms, and a pomegranate. Now - how do you pick the perfect salad from these ingredients? Do you go with the mushroom, onion, goat cheese, walnuts, and pomegranate seeds with a nice balsamic vinaigrette? Nah - done it too many times. I wanted to use that red pepper! So then I thought - roasting it would be nice! But.... I didn't want something soggy/soft nestled in my salad.. I like my salads to be crunchy. So - I made a vinaigrette! I also enlisted the help of Brandon to help tie it all together nicely.
So the salad I ended up with was Bibb Lettuce, shaved red onion, toasted walnuts, and crumbled buttermilk blue cheese... oh and some tomato slices - topped off with a nice roasted red pepper dressing.
Roasted Red Pepper Vinaigrette
Makes about 1 cup
Ingredients:
- 1 Red Bell Pepper, roasted and diced
- 3 cloves of roasted garlic, or 1 clove unroasted (I like the flavor of roasted better)
- 1T balsamic vinegar
- 1T honey or agave nectar
- 1T stone ground mustard
- 2T mayo
- a splash of apple cider vinegar
- 1/3+ c olive oil
- salt & pepper
- paprika
- Place the red pepper, garlic, honey, balsamic, mayo, mustard, & cider vinegar in a mini food-pro or blender. Blend until well combined.
- Drizzle olive oil in and continue to blend - at this point, you may want to add more oil or more mayo to change the consistency of the dressing. Add salt/pepper/paprika to taste
So yeah - simple recipe - was perfect for the salad!
Enjoy!
-Lauren