The Perpetual Feast

I have been wanting to make home-made ranch dressing for a while now.  I’m not a big fan of bottled ranch dressing, so I though I could make one that suited me better. I took this basic idea from Relish magazine, one of those weekly publications that is tucked in my local newspaper once a week – usually on the day that they are running the food ads.  The original recipe uses buttermilk, light mayonnaise, and sour cream – and I lightened it up a bit.  And here is an important hint about light mayonnaise.  I am not a big mayonnaise eater – usually just in tuna salad.  So I usually only buy a small jar of it.  When I went to make this recipe I discovered that there wasn’t enough left in the jar, so I went to the store to get more, and even bought a larger jar because it’s summer, and I’m liable to want to have tuna salad more often.  I grabbed a jar of the brand I usually buy that was labeled “light” mayonnaise.  Somewhat to my surprise, the label said that it had 6 grams of fat/tablespoon.  I don’t like non-fat mayonnaise – it tends to be too sweet.  So I did a little searching and discovered that the same brand has a “low fat” product that only has 1 gram of fat per tablespoon.  This makes a big difference in the fat gram count of the final product, so check your labels.  By the way, I’m using Best Foods Low-Fat Mayonnaise Dressing.

Buttermilk Ranch Dressing

½ cup reduced-fat buttermilk
½ cup non-fat sour cream
½ cup low fat mayonnaise
2 Tablespoons chopped chives
2 Tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
Coarsely ground black pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in bowl. Whisk well. Refrigerate for one hour.  I actually think this tastes better the next day when the flavors have had a chance to blend. Makes 1½ cups. A two tablespoon serving has just under 1 gram of fat/serving.

This is the reason that I actually made the dressing – to serve as a dip for snap peas that are showing up in the market now.

However, I made a double recipe so I can experiment with it.  More about the experiments later.