salad days: creamy summertime dill dressing

tips for tuesday
notes from maggie's farm

We're making our way into the hot, sweaty, dirty days of harvesting around here, and while it can be an arduous task, it makes for delicious lunches, straight from the gardens. Lettuce is still around for a week or so more, and we just managed to harvest our first few red tomatoes that weren't nabbed by squirrels and rabbits, taken to enjoying their midnight snack in the middle of our bounty.  We've got cucumbers, young garlic, sweet onions, herbs, a few more days of peas, cabbages, potatoes and all sorts of goodies just around the bend with which to fill our salad bowl.  

Big Day in the Gardens!

We, or I, (during the week when the other farmer plays hooky from farm duty and chills out at his other two jobs--slacker), will need nourishment, and maybe some relief, around midday, and off comes the messy gloves and shoes at the back door, as an armful of freshness is carried inside to be washed, and dressed simply, for wholesome sustenance.  Just enough fruit-of-the-earth goodness to keep one encouraged to go back out, afterwards, and continue the work.

But not any dressing will do.  No bottled stuff full of sugar and sodium and oddly-named ingredients will spoil what we've spent so many hours organically tending and pampering and coaxing food from the seed.

So this week's Tip for Tuesday, a simple summery all-purpose vegetable dressing, comes along just as the salad days are upon us, quick and easy, meant to complement, not overpower, the delicate ingredients.  We keep this on hand because store-bought won't do, and whisking, mincing, chopping and the like have no place in the middle of a busy day.  Our favorite way to keep the veggies on the best dressed list.....

Yields 1 Pint

Ingredients
1 cup sour cream
1 cup half and half
1T dill weed (just plucked from the stems) or 2t dried dill weed
1t onion salt
a couple of coarse grinds of the pepper mill

In a quart jar (giving room for the blending of ingredients), combine all of the ingredients above, and shake (furiously) until well blended. (For a silky smooth dressing, you may prefer to mix in a blender, though we're rather fond of the occasional lumpiness.) Refrigerate to allow flavors to 'bloom', an hour or so.  Taste, correct seasonings, and drizzle on mixed greens, alone, or along with other chosen salad additions.  

Note:  This yields a fairly thick dressing, great for cabbage and firm greens like romaine, chard, or kale, and even tossed with potatoes for a quick, fresh-tasting take on an old standard.  If using for a more delicate salad, such as the butter lettuce we've used here, or perhaps finely shredded cole slaw, I often dilute with a little water or rice wine vinegar to thin.


If you're a salad fan/fiend like myself, you might enjoy the following salad posts: 

• supper salads: dressed for success, and unprocessed,
• unprocessed: homemade mayonnaise,
• herb-dressed quinoa vegetable salad, and
• turning over a new leaf.

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