feats of eats

I had a long cooking hiatus. Moving and the running-around nature of summertime put a serious dent in my cooking mojo, but I believe now that I’m settled, it’s back! I’m planning on making these things in the near future: crockpot buffalo chicken, many many tacos with homemade tortillas, carrot ginger salad dressing, finally the 40 clove garlic chicken that’s been dancing around my dreams for years, and vanilla bean ice cubes for coffee.

This particular recipe isn’t cooking, it’s a bunch of chopping and throwing into blender or Cuisinart. But salads in the summer are appropriate, and making your own dressing so that on these 100+ degree days you don’t have to go walk somewhere to get it is pretty great. I picked up 3 cucumbers for $1 at the farmers market this weekend, then kind of realized I do not like cucumbers enough to use them. But I came across this recipe which was perfect timing.

I was afraid this would taste a bit watery, a bland ranch with a cucumber water taste, but it really doesn’t. It has a bit of a kick that I can’t explain, maybe just because I used more pepper than the recipe called for. And twice the garlic. I always double the garlic but especially when a recipe only calls for one clove. Anyone who tells me to put 1 clove of garlic in something, I’m going to be asking them what they’re smoking.

Cucumber Ranch Salad Dressing recipe:

(adapted from here)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup skim or 2% milk
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup fat free Greek yogurt
• 1 cucumber, peeled and seeds removed (scraped out w/ spoon)
• 3 tbsp fresh parsley
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup scallions
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper
• 1/4 tsp salt

Directions

Blend all in a blender or food processor.