I made this salad last night with my own sweet one million tomatoes grown in a hanging basket, unbelievable!
Over on my Facebook page we have been discussing a ton of food issues and as you know, I have been on a quest for a real ranch dressing recipe. Wayne recommended a ranch dressing recipe he had altered to his own taste preferences and I tried it and it is unbelievable!
This original recipe comes from an an article in The Vancouver Sun that ran three years ago by Karen Barnaby of the Fishhouse in Stanley Park. It used sour cream and was thinned out with water. Wayne substituted buttermilk for the sour cream and omitted the water completely. Smart foodie!
Wayne’s Perfect Ranch Dressing
1/2 cup mayonnaise (I recommend Hellmann’s, Miracle Whip is too sweet)
3/4 cup of buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used canola)
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
few dashes of Tobasco (I omitted the Tobasco)
2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp dried basil (I used fresh)
2 tbsp finely chopped green onion (I also added some chives)
Whisk it all together and you get a fantastic salad dressing. It must sit for a few hours, overnight is better, for the flavours to meld or it will taste boring, which it isn’t. In fact it just keeps getting stronger and better over time. Wayne says that if it is too runny you can add more mayonnaise. This can also be used for spreads and in potato salad!
Now does it taste like Hidden Valley? I like it so much that Hidden Valley has become a distant memory. In the last two weeks, I have had at least seven salads with this dressing which is a recipe miracle for me. I love it that much. Thank you Wayne!!!
I wish I could say the same for Lynn Crawford’s Roasted Beet and Goat Cheese Salad with Summer Greens. We made this for the Food Network Cooking Club Challenge this month and I really did not like it. The dressing is your classic shallot, lemon juice and olive oil dressing that I find harsh and boring at the same time, quite a foodie feat! All it needed was a little honey or a little more savoriness to work but I am just not a simple recipe foodie. The beets were fantastic though, I had picked some up at the Superstore’s Grown Close to Home display.
This is not the last salad post of the summer! Remember my one out of five wooden spoon review of Girard’s salad dressings? Well they sent me more dressings to taste and review! I love a company with moxie and will be reviewing them soon.
Interesting – I loved the challenge salad and dressing but simply cannot eat ranch dressing, no matter haw awesome it is. Too creamy 🙁
Ooops – hit “publish” too fast! Having said that, if you like creamy dressings this does look like a good one and I love the addition of buttermilk.
Both salads look fantastic and delicious. Can’t wait to try out Wayne’s dressing, it sounds amazing and so tasty. I’ll be making my beet salad this week sometime too, but I think you’re right, after reviewing the dressing I may tweak it a bit or use another dressing altogether. I bought this huge log of goat cheese from Costco, so I may also make some Goat Cheese Gnocchi as well, one of Anna Olson’s recipes.