Smith Salad Dressing

Growing up my whole life my Mom made an oil and vinegar dressing for salads (we ate green salad at almost every meal) which I loved. It was based on my Mom's Mom's (My grandmother's) salad dressing. Anyway, as years passed, my Mom made it less and less. Whenever I saw my brother Rick, I always got to enjoy it again, because he loved it and used it on many things besides salads. But he makes it with VERY HEAVY vinegar, so you have to get used to it before you can stand it.

The other day I was reading my new cook book, The Complete Robuchon, (which should elicit a new blog entry all to itself!) and he talks a lot about salads. So to surprise Jennie and the kids I made a salad and the dressing chosen was a simple Cucumber Curry. It turned out pretty good, though the kids thought it tasted a bit 'different'.

That led to Jennie making the comment, "We ought to have salads at every meal. I had salads all the time growing up." So last night I decided to make another salad with our Tandorri Chicken and what better dressing than my Mom's? Only after all these years I didn't know how to make it. Never had made it before. So after getting some advice and ideas from various people, this is what I came up with.

I put 1/4 of a cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil in a bowl. Then I added a pack of Zesty Italian dressing. Those little packs you get at the market for making dressing. I then added a lot of dried dill, I threw in a dash or two of Cholula Hot Sauce, (if you haven't tried this stuff you have to, it's far better than Tabasco sauce if you ask me), I added some Bouquet Garni from Spice Islands (unfortunately they don't make it anymore, but I believe you can get it from other spice companies), some fresh ground pepper and salt, and some dry mustard. So I let that all sit and soak up for a long time, then after 30 minutes, I added 1/2 cup of Red Wine Vinegar, and some Dill Pickle Juice. not sure how much, maybe and 8th of a cup. Mix and... it was fantastic. It was really good. Amazing. Seriously surprising. It tasted a lot like my mom's but was a bit different. It was really close though and everyone loved it. I mean... EVERYONE. The KIDS loved it! (Though they didn't like the avocado in the salad which blows my mind, but they love the bell peppers. We also add cucumbers because they love them!)

So here is a picture of the dressing.