Homemade Italian Salad Dressing

Husband went to Dallas yesterday for a funeral.  The last of the Schell brothers died this week at the age of seventy-six.  Husband’s father was one of ten children and this uncle was the last one to pass. What an amazing legacy of over 75 children the 10 Schell siblings leave.

I thought I’d fix a big old pot of spaghetti and meat sauce to welcome Husband home.  Nothing fancy.  I made the sauce from scratch and as I’ve posted before (if I can ever get those @#$*& posts imported) I don’t have a recipe for spaghetti sauce.  I concoct as I go and sadly even if it’s an exceptionally good batch by the time I’ve finished cooking (and had a little wine) I’ve forgotten how many dashes of this and pinches of that I used make the memorable sauce.  One day I’ll record it all…

Tonight’s sauce contains the usual suspects – sautéed garlic, onion and ground beef.  Drained and tossed with a handful of seasonings, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes and let’s see…what else?  See my problem.

Anyway, I scrounged to pull a yummy salad together.  It dawned on me that Husband loves his mother’s salad.  Lettuce, tomato, avocado and Italian Salad Dressing.  The kind that comes straight from the Hidden Valley packet and mixed with oil and vinegar.  I was on a mission to recreate this taste for him, but I’ve never bought one of those packages and don’t intend to.  So google pointed me in the right direction and I was lucky to have everything on hand for this delicious salad dressing.

I’m a evoo and balsamic vinegar chick myself, so I don’t keep a lot of dressings on hand.  But this one I’ll keep handy for those nights I want to serve up the next best thing to my mother-in-law’s simple salad.

The seasonings store in the fridge in an airtight container for several months.

Italian Dressing

Dry ingredients:

• 1/3 c parmesan cheese, finely grated
• 1 T garlic powder
• 1 T onion powder
• 1 T paprika
• 2 tsp celery salt
• 1 T sesame seeds
• 1 T dried Italian seasoning blend — I didn’t have this so I used oregano, parsley and rosemary or maybe it was thyme
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp pepper

Mix ingredients and stir well to blend.  When ready to make dressing add:

• 2 T of the seasoning mix
• 2 T water
• 1/3 c red wine vinegar
• 2/3 c oil (I mixed evoo and canola)

Try it!  And if you have a favorite salad dressing please pass it along.  As you might have guessed I like collecting recipes.