By: Elizabeth Webber Akre

Don’t you love those days or evenings when you get to have a meal with your child; just the two of you?  When my husband has to travel, I enjoy having the “girls night” with my 6-year-old “baby.”  We’ve run the gamut from pizza night to the time that she selected both our outfits, did her own hair and we went to Sato for Japanese.  Most recently, we stayed in and had a good ol’ fashioned spaghetti supper.

Whenever I serve pasta, it just seems natural to accompany it with bread and a salad.  Without either of them, I feel like I’m serving some half-baked grad student type of meal.  Plus, I love bread and I love salad.

One perfectly perfect salad for an Italian inspired meal is what my sister and I refer to as “the Mullaney salad.”  Sometimes, blue cheese hits the spot.  But this time, something herbal was in order.  So, I mixed up this dressing and I’m still thinking about it:

Creamy Italian Dressing

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ Tbs red wine vinegar
• 1 ½ Tbs grated Parmesan
• ½ shallot, minced (remember: this is NOT a scallion or green onion)
• ½ tsp minced garlic
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried basil
• ¼ cup mayo
• 2 Tbs sour cream
• ¼ cup olive oil
• salt & pepper (of course!)

Directions:

1. Whisk vinegar, cheese, shallot, garlic, oregano & basil together.  Microwave about 30 seconds to melt cheese and until fragrant.
2. Mix mayo, sour cream and vinegar mixture in your blender.  Slowly add olive oil in a steady stream.  Season with salt & pepper.  Place in fridge for awhile to marry the flavors.

**  This makes about ¾ cup of dressing

See how easy that was?  All these ingredients are probably in your kitchen right this second.  Making your own salad dressing is simple and so worth the 5 minutes that it takes.  It’s fresh, it’s bright, it tastes better and it’s not packed with stuff you can’t pronounce…unless you’re a professional chemist who specializes in food additives and you like that junk.

buon appetito!