In Search Of - Creamy Salad Dressing!

I eat salad - a lot. I eat salads for lunch all summer. With a different assortment of vegetables every week, it never feels repetitive or boring, it readily lends itself to preprep and fast assembly, and it's a great way to eat a lot of lovely fresh vegetables.

And I like to make my own salad dressings. It seems silly to me to pay for an oil and vinegar based dressing when I can make a better, fresher one at home in five minutes (or less) for much less money and with better ingredients.

But I'm missing one thing -  creamy salad dressings. See, when I carry a lunch, and eat in a park, I prefer the thicker dressings. I have a nice little Tupperware leakproof container for my dressing - but then, I pour it into a salad container that... well... is not totally leakproof...  I eat it from that, and that's fine, but I don't have facilities to clean it in the park, and I've found that an oil and vinegar dressing does, sometimes, leak - just a tiny bit, but still... and a creamy thick one does not. So I've been using commercial dressings for that - and I wanted to try something different.

The problem was that most thick dressings are mayonnaise based, and I was making something specifically to carry on a hot day. Now, I don't really carry it long - my schedule swings a bit late in the day - and, if it's really hot, or I'll have it out a while, I do use a thermal bag and ice pack. But still... I didn't want to make something I'd always have to pay attention to, and I know all the mayo based food poisoning horror stories... I decided I wanted to find something else.




First, I decided to try with a bunch of dill. I'd looked up recipes and suggestions, and people seemed to be using Greek Yogurt, which is nice and thick...  So I copped the dill, and put it in a mini food processor.








Processed it a minute, then added yogurt, and just a touch of olive oil to help it cling. Processed that until smooth - it was delicious.

The yogurt is tangy in a very different way than vinegar, and it was really good. But it was also really wet... the processing took away the thickness of the yogurt, even after it had chilled again. So, good, I'll make it again - but not what I was looking for.




Thinking... I saw a suggestion for making one with a fresh tomato, which sounded really good. But... wet... Then I remembered, back in the "All Fat is Evil" nineties, blending cottage cheese and yogurt to make a thick, creamy dip - which people always seemed to really like. That was the texture I was looking for... so...

I only want to make a small amount, with the fresh tomato, as it should be used up in a few days. So, I put 1/4 cup of that Greek yogurt, and a 1/4 cup of natural cottage cheese (without stabilizers - they'll affect the texture adversely - see Note) in a blender with half a very ripe tomato.





Blended it until smooth, then added a sprinkle of dried basil. (Dried, mostly because that's what I had, but also because pink flecked with green is pretty - pink with green fully blended in is muddy...)

Again, delicious, and thicker than the dill, but still too runny. Oh, right - the tomato made it runny... of course!






Well, two possible approaches here. One is just to go ahead with that recipe, but using fresh (or dried) herbs or other flavoring instead of tomato. And I plan to do that, one of these days...  But the other, since we are well into tomato season, and they're just bursting with flavor, is to keep on trying to find a creamy tomato dressing.

OK - the basic idea was sound - adjust proportions?

I used half a cup of cottage cheese, this time. I added a heaping spoonful of Greek Yogurt, for the tang, , and a tablespoon of olive oil (which I'd forgotten last time) remembering that even a little helps the dressing cling to leaves. I blended that - and then, again, stirred in the dried basil. Oh - I didn't add any salt - there is some already in the cottage cheese.

We have a winner! Even right out of the blender, it was thick and creamy - chilling it let it thicken again even a bit more (after the blending made it runny.) And I thought it really tasted good.

I hope showing you the experimentation I used helps. I started knowing enough that nothing was bad, nothing was at all a waste of food or time, but I found the way to make exactly what I wanted, which was not any recipe I had seen. (I have no doubt someone else has figured out something like this - cooking works that way, we're all using the same ingredients and methods -  but I haven't seen it...)

Note: Cottage cheese. I use Friendship, which is a local brand in the East Coast. Its ingredients are basically milk (in various forms - skimmed, cream, selection varies by type of cheese) salt, and enzymes (and these days they pack it with carbon dioxide to keep out oxygen, for freshness.) That's what I grew up eating - and I was confused to find other cottage cheeses that had a different mouthfeel... and seemed... runnier... and didn't work as well in my recipes... Well - many companies, even  organic ones,  now use stabilizers, such as food starch and guar gum. So far as I can tell, they drain off less of the whey, and then use thickeners. At any rate, I find cottage cheese with stabilizers too runny to cook well with - it affects the texture of the final product. I have no idea what brands might make a natural cottage cheese in the rest of the country, but you may want to read labels, and know that ingredients affect results.

Now - in this recipe, the food starch and gum thickeners may in fact work. I did use a brand with them to make smoothies at one point, and it was fine - but it was too wet, when I tried to make a cheese tart. I don't have it on hand to try, though. I really suggest you see if you can find a brand local to you that is just cheese, for cooking, at least.


Creamy Tomato Salad Dressing

1/2 cup cottage cheese
1 T Greek yogurt
1 T olive oil
1/2 large, ripe tomato (or 1 small one,) cut up
1 t dried basil

Combine first four ingredients in a blender jar Blend until smooth. Stir in basil.

Scape hummus

Scapes!

Garlic scapes are one of the best examples of something from nothing food - and very definitely something you'll find in a farmer's market, rather than the local chain grocery store. They are shoots that grow from hardneck garlic, and farmers cut them off, so the garlic heads will be plumper. They are often just thrown out, but for years farmers ate them themselves, and now have made a market for them. 

The Baroque curls of the stem are so exuberant - they're just fun to look at. 

And they have a distinct, though mild, garlic flavor. I found them several years ago, and have usually just cut them and sauteed them in vegetable mixtures. This time, though, I had a whole bag of them... which begged for a more distinctive use. 

I Googled scape recipes. It seems that everyone and her grandmother is making scape pesto... I don't really use pesto much, and I wasn't sure that I wanted a pesto that was quite so garlicky, so I passed on it - but that is something to try, if you find yourself with your own bag of scapes. 

I noticed a reference, in passing, to scape hummus. That's more like it - I often have hummus in the house, and frequently make my own. I had run out of tahini, though, so hadn't made any lately, as I need something to add flavor to the beans - scapes seemed perfect. 

These were quite long, and I noticed that many had slightly tough stems. I decided I wanted to blanch the lower halves, both to tenderize them and to avoid the raw garlic taste, which I don't care for. I cut them roughly in half - reserved the blossom end for later use, and cut the lower end in short manageable pieces. I put them in a metal strainer, brought a pot of water to a boil, then dipped the strainer full of scapes into the water just long enough for it to return to a boil. Then I removed the scapes from the water, and ran cold water over them, to stop the cooking. (I didn't keep the blanching water - but realized later that I should have - it would have just a little flavor and would be great as a beginning  for soup, or the water to cook other vegetables or meat. Just that hint of garlic...)

I did have cooked chickpeas in the refrigerator. I routinely cook a pot of some sort of bean, use some right away, and keep the rest for another meal. I checked, and I had about two cups, that had not been used in  the previous night's dinner. 

I have a mini food processor, as a blender attachment.  I put the blanched vegetables in it, with olive oil, to help smooth it out,  and chopped them coarsely  This was really more than I wanted to use with the amount of chickpeas I had, so I put some in a couple of small ice cube sized containers I have, to freeze. These go into a bag in the freezer, so I can add scapes to other dishes, later in the season. (I routinely have bags of chopped herbs and  aromatic vegetables in the freezer - but that will be another post...)

Then I added some of the drained and rinsed chickpeas to the food processor, and ground that until smooth. They didn't all fit, so I scooped out part of that mixture, put in the rest of the chickpeas, and ground them into the mix. Once it was all smooth, I put it all in the bowl with the first batch. Then I mixed the two batches together. 

I tasted it, and was a bit concerned that the garlic was too strong... but I wasn't planning to eat it right away, and hoped it would mellow. I packed it in a container with a lid, and put it away in the refrigerator. 

I've spoken about my salad lunches. Along with the salad, I generally have some sort of bread, or a couple of rice cakes or other crackers. One reason I like to have hummus on hand is that I'll use it as a spread for the bread or crackers. So, the next day at lunch, I spread my nice thick, creamy, green hummus on my rice cake - and cautiously took a bite.

Oh, my... it mellowed. It was wonderful. Still quite garlicky, but not raw tasting, or overwhelming. I must confess - that picture is of my second helping - I'd spread the first thinner (as I had doubts...) but then I ate it right up and started a second before I remembered that I was blogging this and needed a picture! I gave a taste to Rich, and suddenly he was spreading it on a slice of bread. I think I know what I'm going to do with the frozen scapes - more hummus!

Now - I want people to read the process, and understand how I cook without specific recipes, just guidelines. And it is important to understand that you don't always want to follow exact measurements...  What if you don't have as many scapes as I did? Or you have - and want to use - many more? What if  you have less than my two cups of chickpeas? What if you like your hummus runnier, and richer, and want to add more oil? On the other hand, I want this to be easy to follow, for people used to written recipes, so I write one up at the bottom. 

For this one, though, my amounts are really guesses. You saw the pictures of the curly scapes - how can anyone measure them? And I'm not going to tell you to put half away - the recipe, as such, will call for my guess about the amount that actually ended up in the final product. If I were writing a recipe book, I would now carefully go back, and start over, measuring each ingredient and taking notes as I went along.  Here, though, you're going to have to go with my best guess. 

Scape Hummus

1/2 c  scapes that have been cut into roughly 1 inch pieces

2 T olive oil

2 c cooked, drained chickpeas

pinch salt (opt.)

Bring a saucepan of water to a boil. Blanch the scapes in it, then rinse them under cold water to stop the cooking, and cool. 

Place the scapes in a food processor, with the olive oil, and chop coarsely. Add the chickpeas. (If it doesn't all fit in your processor, do it in batches, and mix afterwards.) Add salt, if using. Process until smooth.

Put away, in a covered container in the refrigerator, and let the flavors blend and mellow overnight.

Kitchen day

This was a busy day in the kitchen.

I've been away for the weekend (I'll post about cooking for that later.) So I'm largely starting from scratch.

This is a bread baking day, and I've learned to fill up the oven! I mean, if I'm going to put it on at all in this heat, I want full use of it. So I just put in 2 loaves of bread, one large and one small bread and cheese pudding, and a large baking dish of tofu.

I have found that 2 ordinary tubs of tofu, sliced in quarters lengthwise, neatly fill my glass baking dish. Himself prefers the texture of baked tofu, and I think it works better in the salads I often carry for lunch, so this gives me roughly a week's worth. (2 slices each for one dinner, and 1 slice, with another protein source, in 4 lunch salads.)

Earlier, I had made a citrus pickled onion.



I omitted the sugar, because I don't want it, and the pepper, because I didn't have one. It's in the refrigerator now, marinating - I'll see how I like it! I also made a huge bowl of tabbouli with the parsley from the CSA - we'll both be eating this for lunch all week, I think.

Lavender silk

I am at a time in my life when I have found it to be a good idea to have some soy products on a regular basis. I also want to somewhat decrease the amount of meat I've been eating lately, while maintaining an amount of protein that makes me feel well, and the two goals work together well. I am, therefore, working on doing this in a more interesting way than tofu in my lunch salad every day.

I have seen recipes that suggest blending silken tofu to make a cream sauce. Now, I've used it in soups, to make them creamy, with very good effect. So, the other night, having some lovely fresh basil and some homemade noodles, I decided to try this.

First note - purple basil makes sauce that is, well... purple. Lavender, really, blended in the tofu. It's not the most appetizing looking food I've ever produced in my kitchen, particularly tossed with the light brown noodles.

Second - the texture was amazingly good. I have issues with dairy, and I've been missing a lot of those creamy textures - this was great.

Third - it was also a bit bland. Part of that, I think, was the basil - I'd had it nearly a week, and it was losing flavor. It was also the tofu, though, which absorbs flavor. I do remember reading that you need to season it much more than you expect - have to remember that, next time.

On the whole, though, we both liked it - voted "an experiment to repeat." The mouth feel (very important to me) was great, the taste was OK, just needed a bit more punch. (Seasoning added liberally at the table helped a good bit.)

Now, silken tofu has less protein in it than firm, so it was not enough alone. I have to serve it over something. I ended up tossing the sauce over cooked noodles, chunks of cooked turkey, and zucchini.

I made the sauce with 1 14 oz. package of fresh silken tofu, several cloves of cooked garlic (left from a garlic chicken dish I'd made) and a bunch of purple basil. I chopped the basil roughly, put it and the garlic into the container for an immersion blender, and blended them smooth. Then I added chunks of the fresh tofu.

I sauteed onions and zucchini, added the already cooked turkey. When it was hot, I tossed in the cooked, drained fresh noodles. Then I added the sauce, tossed just until it was heated through, and served immediately, with freshly grated romano cheese.

One of these days I'm going to try adding pictures. Believe me, though - this was no loss. Odd looking stuff. Did taste pretty good, though, and I'll definitely do it again.