Liz's dressing and Liz's salad

Because my mom is awesome, I grew up eating salad every night with dinner. Really, every night. Now that I'm on my own we don't do this but we do try to have a few different green veggies with every dinner. It's not salad because for awhile I was just so bored with salads. I never liked dressing. In fact, I used to just eat mine plain when I was growing up- like a rabbit. A healthy choice but so boring! I know salads are good for me but I didn't LOVE salad.

Until I met my friend Liz.

She makes this AMAZING salad with a fabulous homemade vinaigrette. This is what was missing from my salads!!! Go make it tonight for dinner. You probably have everything on hand already for the dressing.

"Liz's Dressing"

Ingredients:

olive oil
fig balsamic vinegar (this is what we used but I've had it with many different kinds of vinegar- feel free to experiment! It's also pretty yummy with apple cider vinegar.)
a few garlic cloves, minced (use a garlic press!)
mustard (good mustard is best- not yellow mustard)
salt
pepper

For one medium-sized bunch of lettuce we use a few Tbs of olive oil, about the same amount of vinegar, 3 medium cloves of garlic, a few dashes of salt and pepper and about a teaspoon of mustard. I never measure it out- I always eyeball it so this is not necessarily exact. Feel free to play with the quantities to your taste! This balsamic would be fantastic on a pizza or on a marinated portobello mushroom or even over pasta and veggies. I haven't tried any of these but this dressing always inspires me to want to try it on other things.

1. Mix everything together with a fork or a tiny whisk. Set aside until ready to use.

2. Mix again, to make sure it's all still together and pour over your salad.





"Liz's Salad"

Ingredients:

1 bunch red leaf lettuce (We couldn't find it at the store this week! Such a pain! It really is best with red leaf, trust me.)
1 tomato, cut into whatever sized pieces you'd like (we used 2 small tomatoes)
1 avocado, cut into chunks
whatever else you'd like to add. Liz likes to add black beans- a great addition! Michael likes to add black olives, which are also pretty good.

We made this last night with black olives and green leaf lettuce. Serve with Liz's dressing. This salad is a hit with company and is a good salad to have with different types of meals. We had it last night with an Amy's roasted vegetable pizza and it was a delicious and easy dinner.

My favorite part of this salad (other than the dressing) is the avocados. Well, probably the avocados with the dressing is what I love. Oh man. I want some right now and It's definitely still only breakfast-time. Good thing we have some leftovers for lunch!