I have to confess that I am particular about my ranch dressing. I primarily use it as a dip as I have other salad dressings that I prefer over it. However, my husband is a huge fan, so I decided to try to make some homemade ranch dressing.
The recipe is from the Allrecipes.com site and has been slightly modified from the original recipe posted. This is due to the nature of the mayonnaise that I bought – organic mayonnaise from Trader Joes. It is much tangier than regular mayonnaise so I had to adjust the sour cream from 1/2 cup to a 1 cup. I recommend picking a less tangy mayonnaise for simplicity sake and less headache.
I also ground my own spices to a powder. Here is a picture of the ground spices in the mortar and pestle.
Homemade Ranch Dressing
Ingredients
- 1 cup mayonnaise
- 1/2 cup sour cream ( I changed this to 1 cup due to high tang of the mayonnaise)
- 1/2 teaspoon dried chives
- 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
- 1/2 teaspoon dried dill weed
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
Directions
- In a large bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, sour cream, chives, parsley, dill, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes before serving.
It was very good and pretty easy to make! I recommend trying this out if you must have ranch dressing. Homemade does make a huge difference!
I have to admit that I often have a difficult time coming up with names for my rovings after they are dyed. Sometimes what originally inspired me doesn’t fit the color scheme anymore. Sometimes I just wing it. However, I hope that when I do finally assign a name to each fiber, that the name fits and inspires people to associate it to the color and texture of the roving in question.
Earth Inspired Fiber Roving
Setting Sun Inspired Fiber
Grand Turk Fiber
Oh and I almost forgot to include the Orchid Inspired Fiber which sold promptly after I listed it on Etsy. It is very pretty!
If you have any tricks or tips to naming items to be sold, please feel free to share in the comment section. Thanks!
On the spur of the moment, my inner lush decided to try something that I vaguely remember reading about years ago. It involves liquor (of course), fruit, and a jar. What I am referring to is soaking fruit long-term in alcohol in the refrigerator in a jar. The article I remember reading mentioned raisins so I started with those first.
I put half rum, half brandy to cover the raisins completely, then threw on another finger of bourbon to add more flavor. I can’t wait to use these! They’ve been in my refrigerator for about a month so far soaking up the alcohol goodness. From what I have found on the Internet, it says that it should keep up to a year. I’m assuming it is because of the large alcohol content. Now the next thing to do is to decide what to use them in. Do you have any suggestions?
I also had a lot of oranges as discussed in my previous post about candied orange peels. Well, part of those when into this experiment where I filled a whole quart jar with the orange slices and then dumped mid-grade vodka over them, filling to the top. I also did the same with some maraschino cherries I had in the food pantry. I plan on putting these both out at our next party for mixed drink garnishes. Or, people can just eat them straight. Whatever the way they are consumed, they will be leaden with alcohol.
When blackberries come into season, I plan on doing the same thing with those. Though the liquor will be Framboise instead of vodka or rum. Cheers!