When idle and hungry two hours before meals, as all too often happens, I tend to think up a menu that will (a) require advance preparation and (b) be as messy as possible. This kills time, and gives the cook free license to “frugally” hoover up all those tempting little bits of carrot, rice, spinach etc. that have just flown all over the kitchen. Salads are particularly good for this. Today disaster struck: after lugging home several hundredweight of shopping, I realised I had forgotten to replace the balsamic vinegar. Fresh local veg or no, I won’t be eating any damn fool salad without salad dressing.
My Google search history bears many traces from previous such failings - “cake without eggs”, “bread without fat”, “lasagne without tomatoes”, the very optimistic “white sauce without milk” and so on. This time it was “salad dressing without vinegar”, which eventually yielded a few raw-food things for those who are allergic to life. A little adapting and de-sanctifying later and this was my result:
NO VINEGAR SALAD DRESSING (femme)
Juice of 2 medium-sized lemons
2cm piece of ginger, grated
2 tsp garlic puree
1 small apple, grated
1 tsp clear honey
black pepper to taste
2 tsp water (if needed to thin out)
1) Squeeze the lemons.
2) Grate the ginger and apple.
3) Put it all in a blender and blend it.
I intend to present the unsuspecting OH with this tonight. OH, having far fewer calorific neuroses than me, has a salad dressing recipe that goes like this:
NO VINEGAR SALAD DRESSING (butch)
1 huge can olive oil, upended for at least 10 seconds.
Incidentally this is also the recipe Spanish barmen use for a whisky measure, only with whisky bottle substituted for olive oil can (if you’re lucky).
We shall see what the response to the Raw Dressing is later when it is poured over this (100g pearl barley, 2 grated carrots, and 1/2 cucumber diced):
Frankly you would have to go a very long way to ruin the amazing carrots with which we are provided weekly by Growing Communities. I tried bloody hard with the “no pastry quiche”, but even that was palatable, once you’d poured off the geysers of carrot and courgette juice that joyfully sprang forth from it in the oven. If I can find the recipe I will by all means post it. Wear a mac though.
