Dressing Up

My favorite salad dressing for a long portion of my life - ranging from the age when memories first start up until the end of highschool- was Ranch dressing made from the dry mix. It was the official Meier household salad dressing, sworn in by Mom, who said it tasted better than bottled Ranch (she was right.) This was long before olive oil and balsamic vinegar and flax oil made it into our kitchen and long before any of us knew to feel incredibly guilty about eating ingredients like Maltodextrin, Monosodium Glutamate,Modified Food Starch, Casein and Hydroxypropyl MethylCellulose (mixed with mayo and buttermilk, of course).

It pleases me, though, that whenever I go home there is still an orange Tupperware container in the fridge filled with Ranch dressing. With all due respect to the farmer's market shopping-healthy eating-locavore dining-Michael Pollan disciples out there, (I can say this, because I am actually one of them) sometimes modified food starch and maltodextrin mixed with mayonnaise still tastes really good. Standing in the kitchen late at night reading a magazine and eating summer lettuce and a grilled chicken drumstick doused in Ranch dressing is much more fun than doing the same thing while eating micro-greens and sprouts doused in lemon juice. This is an irrefutable fact.

But as they say, you can't go back. Ranch dressing made from a dry mix is no longer the official household dressing at my parent's house; it is an indulgence for meals when the body is so overloaded with healthy omegas from flax oil that it can't take any more. In my own kitchen, I long depended on balsamic vinegar to dress salads then turned to fresh lemon when I moved to a city where lemons grew on trees outside the door. But lately, I have grown salad weary. I simply can't eat another bowl of such plainly dressed greens. I need a salad with a little more style. I want something that tastes good but doesn't make me feel guilty. This search will continue all summer I presume, but for now I have been satiated by a Mango-Avocado dressing that's incredibly easy to make. This recipe makes a few cups of the dressing and after a few days in the fridge it gets a little thick, so eat it sooner rather than later.

Mango-Avocado Dressing

In a blender mix:
1 peeled mango
1/2 of an avocado
1 tsp dijon mustard
1/2 of a jalapeno pepper, minced
1 Tbsp cilantro (or parsley)
1 Tbsp lime juice
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
Salt and Pepper to taste