Ray Charles Vinaigrette

There is literally nothing I can talk about in this post.  It is so self explanatory and for the first time ever... I am at a loss for words.  I literally and most surprisingly have absolutely no stories about salad dressing.  My experiences thus far with salad dressing have been quite ordinary in fact.  I went through my immature blue cheese phase from about 7 - 9 years old.  Then I asked why the cheese was blue.  I moved into my more-mature-but-still-not-quite-there-yet French dressing phase from ages 9 - 12.  I then regressed into a even-less-mature-than-blue-cheese-dressing Ranch phase, which I blissfully enjoyed up until my last buffalo chicken wrap at age 20.  My evolving passion for cooking gave way to a marked improvement in my pallet which brings us to my current phase:  The I-no-longer-need-and-entire-cup-of-dressing-on-my-half-portioned-side-salad Vinaigrette phase.  It is in this most current phase that I have learned to enjoy some of the finer things in life-- balsamic vinaigrette, Italian dressing, and the actually impressive flavor of plain vegetables.  Fascinating.

It is this phase which also brings us to our current food adventure.  I say adventure because we are truly winging it now and getting slightly unnecessary in our decisions.  This week, mainly out of boredom due to my never-really-having-any-class schedule, lack of fitness classes at the gym, and well-founded decision not to drink wine at 1:30pm each afternoon, I decided to create my own salad dressing. Woah, fancy, I know.  I looked up what the basics were in making salad dressings, took into account the meal/ salad type I was preparing it with, and got to work.

Now let me tell you a story about a girl, whimsically making salad dressing, who hastily decides to grate an onion.  I'll skip to the ending of this unhappy tale-- I BURNED MY F[EXPLETIVE] EYES OUT.  I seriously though I had pulled a Stevie Wonder as I feverishly rinsed my eyes with nearly a gallon of water.  Needless to say, it wasn't worth it however, the grated onion surely did add a great flavor without the massive chunks of poorly chopped onion.  All in all though, not worth it.  Just chop the damned onion.

With that being said, lets drive right into it and get started on making our very own, very first, batch of salad dressing that will, from here on out, be referred to as Ray Charles Vinaigrette (or RCV for short).


what you'll need... besides goggles...
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup plus 2 tbs Apple Cider Vinegar
2 cloves fresh garlic, finely chopped
1/2 yellow onion, not grated, finely chopped
2 tbs dijon course ground mustard
1/2 - 1 tsp white granulated sugar (depending on desired sweetness)
Thyme
Basil
Cracked Sea Salt
Fresh Ground Black Pepper


I'll bet you can guess what you need to do next...
1  Combine all ingredients in a large measuring glass.  Stir together vigorously, then transfer to a storage bottle (I used an old oil dispenser) and store in the refrigerator until ready to use.