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Thursday, August 30, 2012

Basil Vinaigrette

We had lunch with our dear friends a couple of weeks ago and she made two wonderful salads for lunch - a simple pasta salad and a quinoa salad.  Both were delicious, but what made them that way was the fabulous salad dressing!

I love homemade dressings.  They usually only have a few ingredients (all of which you can pronounce) and are so fresh and flavorful.

I asked Kimberlee for her dressing recipe, but she is a "little of this and a pinch of that" kind of a cook.  Anyway, I have recreated it to the best of my ability and I wanted to share with you.

If you like the taste of basil - you will really enjoy this dressing.

1 c. olive oil
1/3 c. white wine vinegar
1/4 c. yogurt or sour cream (I prefer yogurt with all the good probiotics)
1-2 cloves garlic, minced (depending on how "hot" you like things)
1 very large handful of fresh basil leaves
1/2 tsp. salt
Dash pepper

Kimberlee put all the ingredients in a wide mouth quart canning jar and then blended it all with an immersion blender. (How ingenius is that?!)

My immersion blender died, so I just put it all in my blender to immulsify it.  Then I transfered it to a bottle.

Her quinoa salad was so simple - cooked quinoa, cooled; 1 cucumber sliced (the slices were then quartered); 1 medium sized zucchini, sliced (those slices were also quartered) and I think one other thing, (grape tomatoes?)  It really was just so good.

Won't you give it a try...and then tell me what you think.



3 comments:

  1. Mmmm. I never thought to make a dressing with yogurt. I sure love greek yogurt.

    I just got some summer peach and red apple balsamic vinegars from a cute shop on Balboa. I love making simple vinaigrettes with good olive oil & flavored balsamics - so good on bitter greens with sweet summer fruit and walnuts.

    Wish we could linger over lunch together... miss you. :-)

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  2. I'm with you - vinaigrettes are the best. Your new balsamic vinegars sound wonderful!

    I learned that if you add a bit of mustard (like Dijon) or yogurt then your oil/vinegars separate less.

    One of these days - we'll get to have our lunch {and latte and ..... :-) }

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  3. Oh, this sounds so delicious....and I love Kimberlee's recipes. I have a stash in my recipe book that I treasure. Your recipes are so good, too....my stash of Pur et Simple recipes is growing, too!! I will try this for sure!

    ~Julia

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