Sunday, October 2, 2016

Secret Recipe Club: Lemon Vanilla Salad Dressing

For this month's Secret Recipe Club, I was assigned the blog Shockingly Delicious.  Shockingly Delicious is written by a woman named Dorothy who is a writer, long time cook, and mom.  Dorothy has so many amazing looking recipes on her blog!  I had such a hard time choosing one because the recipes look so interesting.  I considered Vegetarian Chard Soup, Slow Cooker Hawaiian Kalua Pork, Hot Gooey Caramel Pie, and Rustic Herbed Stuffing with Greens.  I'll probably make the stuffing recipe for Thanksgiving because it looks so good.  We don't even normally have stuffing at Thanksgiving because my family can take it or leave it, but that one looks too interesting not to try.
 
Anyway, I chose Lemon Vanilla Salad Dressing.  What unique ingredients, I've never seen vanilla in dressing before.  Though I was a little suspicious of how it would turn out, I'm happy to say it's quite good.  Unique and tasty, the flavors totally work!  My husband liked it, too, and he has pretty traditional tastes when it comes to salad and dressings.  I'm having flashbacks to his horror when I served a kale salad with chopped apples, walnuts, and dried cranberries topped with an avocado lemon dressing.  Usually he loves what I make, but he still talks about how bad that was.  I liked it...  Point is, even he enjoyed this dressing, unique and dare I say "girly" as it may be.

I served the dressing over plain bagged salad from the grocery store, but added some of the last of my baby tomatoes and peppers from my garden.  I meant to give the salad a sprinkle of dried cranberries, too, but forgot.  Oops!  What I can say for sure is that I'll definitely make this dressing again.  It would be great in the summer since the flavors are so light, or in the dead of winter to perk things up a bit.  Thanks for the awesomeness, Dorothy!
 
One last thing: I received a sad e-mail saying that November would be the last month of Secret Recipe Club because they're closing up shop.  I remember how excited I was to join 2 1/2 years ago.  The rules were that you had to have 100 recipe posts WITH pictures, and a recipe index, so I spent quite a while building up my collection of recipes with photos (it isn't second nature of me to take a picture of what I cook!) and making the index before I applied.  How disappointing for it to be over.  
  
I'll still lurk around some of my favorite blogs that I found through SRC, like Making Memories with your Kids, Chef in Disguise, Mother Would Know, The Pajama Chef, and BCMom's Kitchen, but it won't be the same.  All of the blogs I've been assigned to have been great though.  Many of the SRC recipes I've made are ones I still make, and I've tried a lot of recipes that I never would have tried. and I've thoroughly enjoyed the past two and a half years of Secret Recipe Club.  Does anyone know of other cooking blog groups like this?
   
  
  Lemon Vanilla Salad Dressing
 
4 Tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste (I used Nielsen-Massey brand, yum!)
pinch salt
 
Place all ingredients in a bowl and blend with an immersion blender for about 30 seconds or until all ingredients are combined and the dressing has thickened slightly.  Alternatively, you can mix it up in a blender.
 
Yield: 1/2 C dressing
   


13 comments:

  1. I've never seen vanilla in a dressing before either, what fun!

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    1. It really is! Also, this recipe prompted me to finally crack open my bottle of vanilla bean paste that I've had for months. Why in the world do I save things like that instead of just using them? Holy moly, it tastes awesome. Time to vanilla bean pastify everything.

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  2. Very interesting... I love using an ingredient in unexpected ways, when it works, it's quite amazing!

    Love Dorothy's blog.... a ton of stuff to choose there!

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    1. Yeah, I was curious, but didn't have really high hopes. I don't think everyone would love the dressing, but we enjoyed it.

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  3. Great post!
    I feel your pain. It took me 2 years to get to the point where I was eligible to join, and this is my first reveal day! :(
    BUT it seems that not all is lost. Sarah has a variation of SRC starting up called Fantastical Food Fight, and Nichole has another recipe challenge where you're assigned 2 ingredients to incorporate into a dish each month. I've signed up for both as I want to keep having fun with the people I've met this month. Best of luck!

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    1. Marla, thank you for that info! I'm going to sign up for the Fantastical Food Fight, but can't find a link to Nichole's, could you help me out? Not sure if this will have the same quality to it as SRC that I've enjoyed so much, but I'm willing to give it a try.

      Also, I'm so sorry to hear this was your first month and you'll only get one more! What a shame :(

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  4. Vanilla is dressing? Now I must try this out. Happy Reveal Day!

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  5. Love Dorothy's blog! This sounds totally interesting. Yes, I remember when I first joined and I was on a six month waiting list and was so excited to get in. I'm glad I had a chance to have your blog a couple of months ago.

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    1. I was lucky in that I got accepted within a month, but a lot of prep sure went into getting to that point! Are you going to join any other cooking groups like this SRC?

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  6. Wow, vanilla in a salad dressing, never seen that before but must try it! Karen

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  7. Oh, thank you for trying my recipe! I am so glad you and your family liked it. I use it on all sorts of things, from grain salads to chunky kale salads to more ordinary green salads. Thanks for doing such a good job on me!

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  8. I gotta try this one. Vanilla in a salad dressing, interesting. Great SRC choice.

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