recipephile

Vegan Thousand Island Dressing

My friend Crista, chef/owner of boon eat + drink are working on a few new sandwiches and were asked by a vegetarian friend to make a vegan sandwich.  She recommended a vegan reuben, which calls for thousand island dressing.  So we searched high and low and found ourselves a recipe for a vegan version.  We adjusted the recipe significantly.  This is pretty easy to make.

- 1 12 oz. jar of chili sauce

- The juice from 1 medium lemon

- 1 3/4 cups of vegan mayonaise

- 1/2 cup of dill relish

- 1 1/2 tsp onion powder

- 2 tsp siracha or chili garlic sauce

- 2 tbsp honey

Place all of the ingredients into a bowl and mix well.  Refrigerate for about one hour before using on a sandwich or salad.  You can place the leftover dressing into a storage container.  This recipe makes quite a bit.

Product Review -- Fresh at Hand Herbs

What I Tried:
Fresh at Hand flash frozen and vacuum dried herbs (Approx $5-6) at grocery and gourmet stores.

Most of the people that I cook with are purists.  The thought of using dried herbs for some is an abomination. Many people that I have spoken to about this subject feel that the drying process robs fresh herbs of their oils and flavors.  Then I got a call from the team at The Spice Hunter, the company that makes Fresh at Hand.  Fresh at Hand herbs are picked fresh, flash frozen and then freeze dried. This process apparently removes the moisture, but retains the oil, aroma, color and flavor.  Forever a skeptic when it comes to things like this I had to give them a try.

What I Made:
I decided that I needed to make a few dishes to really test whether liquids would help to rehydrate the herbs and release the flavors.  The first was a rice dish that I prepared in my Rival 6 cup rice cooker. The rice cooker is so easy to use, all you need to do is put the ingredients in the pot, cover and turn it on. I used 1 tbsp of the Italian Herb mixture, 2 tsps garlic, 1 cup of rice and 1.5 cups of chicken broth. The rice took less than 15 minutes to cook and the Rival rice cooker has a warmer.  So you can make the rice well before dinner and keep it warm for a while.

We were having salad for dinner so I made dressing with the Spring Salad Mix (dill weed, shallots, garlic and chives).  2 tbsp Spring Salad Mix herb, 1 cup extra virgin olive oil, ½ cup balsamic vinegar and freshly ground black pepper (about three or four turns of your mill should do). Hand blenders come in handy here because they help to emulsify the oil and vinegar mixture, but if you do not have a hand blender then place the ingredients into a jar, cover and shake very very well.  That should do the trick.

You can check out the Rib Roast that I made by logging on here.

How They Rate:
Once a skeptic, not anymore.  These herbs are really incredible and a great alternative when fresh is not available.  For even the most hard core purist, Spice Hunter’s innovation with dried herbs went over very well with me.

Pickled Garlic Salad Dressing

We used McCutcheons pickled garlic for this recipe and used it to dress Grilled Romaine.

You'll need about 6-8 cloves of pickled garlic, 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil and 3/4 cup of rice vinegar (unseasoned), 1 tsp of Kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper and 1 tsp of chili flakes.

Finely chop the garlic and place into mixing bowl with all of the other ingredients.  Add black pepper to taste. Mix very well and serve over salad.

Mom Made Salad Dressing - Orange Marmalade Dressing

My mom sent me this email...  I love reader participation.

Mikey

I made a yummy salad dressing tonight.   I made my dressing with rice vinegar (my fav.) olive oil, salt pepper, AND   TA DA+++++...orange marmalade!!!! just about a Tbsp. For the salad for 2 I used 2 cups or so of romaine and some sweet onions.