Mystery Salad Dressing No More

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Dinner is not complete without a salad. My kids would disagree with me on that one though. Which is why I make the salad shake for them often. This way, we all win.

But I digress.

In my fridge I have probably 20 small jars that contain some form of homemade salad dressing. You'll never see a bottle of Kraft Thousand Island in my house. A bottle of Renee's Gourmet, possibly (my kids love the Mighty Caeser)... but NEVER krappy kraft and the like. Its just too easy to make a dressing.

Note to self: clean out small jars of mystery dressing from fridge.

Okay, so it turns out there are only 6 within easy reach. Not 20. (Aside from the small ones that are behind too many other small jars that make it next to impossible to easily grab for a fast photo op.) But on the plus side, I now have several bernardin jars available for use again! Again, I digress.

So to make life easy, and keep my fridge available for things OTHER than small bottles of mystery dressing, I decided to make the dressing RIGHT IN THE BOWL. You just make a one time amount, and toss the salad just before serving.

This salad is a blue cheese (roquefort) salad with pears and pecans. (As an aside, my children are extremely glad that I made the salad drink for them. They both LOATHE blue cheese. I love it - it is most definitely an acquired taste.)

So into a big bowl, I put a glug of EVOO, a bit of apple cider vinegar, some smoked salt (oh so yum and available at longo's), a little bit of sumach (which gives it a really nice sour oomph) and some mustard.

Today's mustard selection was a wasabi one, since it was the first one I found in my horribly jam packed, full of small bottles, fridge. Whisk it all together. Dressing done.

Toast some pecans. I throw them on a bit of aluminum and bake them at 350 for 8 minutes or so in my toaster oven. Give them a zhuzh about halfway through so they don't burn.

Use however many you need, then whatever is left wrap up in the foil and throw in the fridge for next time. Toasted pecans are seriously yummy. Break them up and toss them on top of the salad. Normally I like to use baby arugala, but I didn't have any of that, so I used a mix of mesclun and spinach. Its what I had. I crumbled the blue cheese, added the pecans, and sliced up a pear as well.

The sweetness of the pear, the crunchiness of the pecans, the bitterness of the arugala (or in this case the lettuces on hand) are a perfect balance with the slightly sour dressing and the salty cheese. Its totally umami. Unless you are a 13 year old boy; then its totally disgusting. When you are ready to sit down and eat, toss and serve.