The paranoid me is worried that they were scoping it out for something later (car theft or burglary). Thankfully, I don't leave any schedules, keys, or valuables inside my car, but it's so creepy to know some jerk was sitting in my car and trying to rip me off. After getting my car stolen last year, I've wised up a bit and I always lock my steering wheel and put on "the club" after I park., but I guess there's not much I can do to protect against break-ins.
I'm just really fed up with city living. It's loud, I can't run around here, and stupid stuff like this happens. I think this will be the year we move out of Midtown, which is sad in some ways, but it will be nice to not have strange people sleeping outside the stairwell door, trying to break into our cars or going through our trash.
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Onto happier news! When I got home from class on Tuesday, I got to work on our latest farm fresh delivery. We got radishes in our shipment, and I learned that you can use radish greens in pesto as well!
I used most of the radishes in this Spicy Radish Relish (which we had on our fish tacos last night), but I saved a couple to snack on. That's when I got the idea to develop a Peanut Ginger dressing to dip veggies and use on salad.
I thought it was a funny coincidence when I saw Elsie from A Beautiful Mess had done a post on making your own salad dressings, as I had this post in the works since Tuesday. I guess it's just a salad dressing kind of week in blogland!
I thought it was a funny coincidence when I saw Elsie from A Beautiful Mess had done a post on making your own salad dressings, as I had this post in the works since Tuesday. I guess it's just a salad dressing kind of week in blogland!
The great thing about making your own dressings is that you know exactly what is going into them: there are no surprise hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup (unless you add those I guess) and you can easily control the amount of fat and calories.
So here is my recipe for Peanut Ginger Vinaigrette as well as my go-to Balsamic Dijon Dressing. I wrote these dressings in "parts," so that you can make as much or as little at a time as you like. As a simple guide, 1 Tablespoon per part will yield approximately one serving. Hope that makes sense...
Peanut Ginger Vinaigrette
Ingredients:
-2 Parts Rice Vinegar
-1 Part Natural Peanut Butter
-1 Part Honey
-1/2 Part Minced Ginger
-1/4 Part Lemon Juice
Begin by gradually mixing rice vinegar into peanut butter until mixture is smooth and liquid. Then, using whisk add lemon juice, ginger, and honey until well mixed.
This is a great dressing for Asian style salads, for an interesting slaw, or as a dip for crudites.
A note on using honey: generally speaking, you don't want to mix in honey if you are planning to keep the dressing for more than a couple days, as it tends to crystallize and make your dressing all lumpy and weird. You can substitute white sugar, or you can keep the mix without honey in the fridge and mix the honey into dressing in a separate bowl immediately before each use.
Meg's Simple Balsamic Dijon
This is the recipe I use most often. I mix it up, make it sweeter and more or less oily/vinegary by tweaking the amounts depending on what I'm craving or what else is in my salad. Feel free to tweak any or all of the proportions :)
Ingredients:
-1 Part Balsamic Vinegar
-1 Part Dijon Mustard
-1/2 Part Olive Oil
-1/2 Part Honey/Sugar
-Pinch of Salt
-Pepper to taste
Whisk vinegar, olive oil, and mustard together until smooth. Add sugar, salt and pepper. This dressing usually requires re-whisking before each use.
My favorite use for this dressing is on Spring greens with diced Fuji apples, walnuts, and goat cheese.
Happy Eating!!
So here is my recipe for Peanut Ginger Vinaigrette as well as my go-to Balsamic Dijon Dressing. I wrote these dressings in "parts," so that you can make as much or as little at a time as you like. As a simple guide, 1 Tablespoon per part will yield approximately one serving. Hope that makes sense...
Peanut Ginger Vinaigrette
-2 Parts Rice Vinegar
-1 Part Natural Peanut Butter
-1 Part Honey
-1/2 Part Minced Ginger
-1/4 Part Lemon Juice
Begin by gradually mixing rice vinegar into peanut butter until mixture is smooth and liquid. Then, using whisk add lemon juice, ginger, and honey until well mixed.
This is a great dressing for Asian style salads, for an interesting slaw, or as a dip for crudites.
A note on using honey: generally speaking, you don't want to mix in honey if you are planning to keep the dressing for more than a couple days, as it tends to crystallize and make your dressing all lumpy and weird. You can substitute white sugar, or you can keep the mix without honey in the fridge and mix the honey into dressing in a separate bowl immediately before each use.
Meg's Simple Balsamic Dijon
This is the recipe I use most often. I mix it up, make it sweeter and more or less oily/vinegary by tweaking the amounts depending on what I'm craving or what else is in my salad. Feel free to tweak any or all of the proportions :)
Ingredients:
-1 Part Balsamic Vinegar
-1 Part Dijon Mustard
-1/2 Part Olive Oil
-1/2 Part Honey/Sugar
-Pinch of Salt
-Pepper to taste
Whisk vinegar, olive oil, and mustard together until smooth. Add sugar, salt and pepper. This dressing usually requires re-whisking before each use.
My favorite use for this dressing is on Spring greens with diced Fuji apples, walnuts, and goat cheese.
Happy Eating!!
Yikes - sorry to hear about your car. I can definitely relate to city living - even though we live more on the outskirts of our city. My car was rifled through by someone one night last year, and just like in your case, nothing was missing, but it gave me the worst heebie jeebies knowing someone was sitting in My vehicle shuffling through My belongings - but even creepier was knowing they were just feet from my doors and windows. ...some people.
ReplyDeleteThat radish relish sounds so good - as do your two dressings. I love homemade dressings because of how easy they are to adapt and they're always gone before they spoil! For some reason I don't think I can ever go through a whole bottle of store-bought salad dressing.
Hope you have an awesome weekend and no more car/creeper worries!
I'm glad you shared it because I always love it and usually just resort to boring 'ol olive oil. Glad everything was ok with your car, that def is scary though! It's sad that big cities usually have so many problems like that. I def feel fortunate that I can bike to work. Anyway, thanks for your comment, it's always wonderful to hear I have a new reader. What a pity you missed San Sebastian but Bilboa sounds great too! I've done a few other Spain posts already but from Andalusia if you were interested. Hope you enjoy your weekend : )
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