stRAWberry Dressing. Unexpectedly delightful!
I’ve been experimenting with making my own super fresh salad dressings lately. This one turned out so good I had 3 helpings back to back to back. When I tell my friends some of the ingredients involved they make the “ewwww” face, but try to keep your mind and mouth open and give this a try! Trust me! Something about the sweet but tar flavor of the strawberries this time of year really lends it self well to both enhancing the flavors of other veggies as well as adding a wonderful flavor blanket on top. Ok enough jibba jabba, here’s the “recipe”:
- 1 cup of extra virgin olive oil
- 3-4 tbsp of balsamic vinegar
- 1-2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 8-10 strawberries
- 4 gloves of garlic
- 1 packet of stevia sweetener (although had I had honey, I would have used a spoonful of that instead).
First off, all the ingredients listed above are guesstimates. I made the dressing by intuition and to taste. So, with that said…puree the heck out of the mix until it is super smooth. Note, you may not need the sweetener, depending on the sweetness of the berries (or unless you just like things “tartier”…hey some of us do!). I just love the color of this dressing. It provided a great contrast to some salad greens, and blended amazingly well with the ingredients I included in my wrap, which were…:
- portabello mushroom slices
- red onion diced
- jalapeño slices
- romaine lettuce cut into strips
- almond slices
The taste of the semi sweet, semi tart, strawberry dressing worked so well with the semi-neutral, earthy taste of the portabellos and the almond slices (which incidentally added a great crunch to the mix). The onions and hot peppers played a nice contrast to the sweetness, much like one of my other favorite surprising taste combinations, chocolate and cayenne.
You can use that as a dressing in any fashion. I had two plate loads of salad right after the wrap I took a picture of…after I got the taste in my mouth, the camera wasn’t even a thought until the blind consumption of something super tasty was complete, and my lust for this newfound taste combination had been sated. Hah, I know funny language…but, trust me, my words can’t truly describe what my repeated trips to the table for this dressing can.
Try it out, it could be the perfect addition to a RAW Valetines! <3
Except for the garlic part…ok, better bring some fresh mint leaf as well. 
[ED-phewww…made it through the whole post without a single mention to strawberry fields…]