Food Friday: Italian Salad Dressing

The recent spell of warm(ish) weather has me thinking about spring and summer cooking.  And to me, that means salads, lots and lots of salads.  There is lettuce in my garden and should any survive the bunnies, I'll be serving that at my table soon enough.  In the meantime, there's always the fresh greens at my local market to satisfy my cravings.

I make homemade dressings because they taste amazing, are easy to create, and are generally much less expensive than the bottled kind.  In the past, I've posted my recipe for blue cheese dressing and I highly recommend that y'all stir up a batch of that.   I also recommend this basic Italian dressing:

2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon onion salt
1 tablespoon sugar
4 ounces white wine vinegar
8 ounces olive oil

Mix well at least one hour before you intend to dress the salad in order to allow the flavors to mingle.  You'll need to mix it again before you put it on your salad as the oil and vinegar will separate (but you knew that, right?).  The yellow color in this batch is a bit unsettling (the olive oil was a bit golden), but the taste is still great.  The dressing will keep in the fridge for at least two weeks, though I expect you'll have eaten it well before that date.

The recipe is easily adjusted:  substitute balsamic or red wine vinegar for the white wine vinegar to suit your tastes (or the contents of your pantry).  If you like basil more than oregano, swap the amounts.  If you don't have onion salt on hand, use regular salt and finely mince some shallots or a mild onion.

I use a salad dressing cruet to make most of the oil based dressings in my cookbook.  My mom gave it to me years ago.  Though a quick Amazon search revealed plenty of cruets on the market, a jar with a secure lid will also do the trick.

Happy eating!