Buttermilk Basil Ranch Dressing, It’s No Longer Cute

I will spare you the heat groans.  We all know it’s hot in Boston.  I’ve been calling it spicy, but on Day Four of scorching, it’s no longer cute. 

I haven’t turned on my stove in days and despite subsisting on salads and frozen fruit, I still feel puffy.  Until this business improves, I will be relying mostly on the aforementioned.

Impeccably timed really, I made a couple mason jars worth of ranch dressing earlier this week.  You know, before hell rose to the surface of the earth.  Never fear.  No heat necessary for this one.

Here’s what you do.  Secure a few fistfuls of basil, plus two shafts of scallions.  Mix in some chilled buttermilk, yogurt, vinegar, a neutral oil, plus some seasoning.  Toss with vegetables that can sustain their crunch.

The preferred combination I’m working with includes sugar snap peas, sliced Easter egg radishes, a mix of raw Royal Burgundy and chartreuse green beans, and romaine.  Add in some cubes of sourdough and parmesan shards.  Plus a few mint leaves and a flick of fleur de sel.  The bread sops up any dressing that pools at the bottom of the bowl.  The result is a refreshing, creamy salad that straddles the line somewhere between Caesar and panzanella. 

If you get up the guts to actually cook something, some red potatoes would be very welcome, as well.  As for the big yellow bowl?  Yeah, I ate lunch out of it today.  Dainty went out the window six degrees ago.

Buttermilk Basil Ranch Dressing

Ingredients:

2 fistfuls of basil (about 1-1½ cups)

2 scallions, the white and green parts

½ cup buttermilk

¼ cup 2% plain Greek yogurt

¼ cup mayo

¼ cup cider or wine-based vinegar

1 heaping tbsp Dijon mustard

pinch red pepper flakes

salt and pepper, to taste

½-2/3 cup canola or grapeseed oil

Instructions:

Blend the first nine ingredients in a food processor.  Blend or whisk in oil.  Taste and adjust seasoning, adding more salt, Dijon, mayo, and/or oil if it seems too wimpy.  Refrigerate.  The flavor gets better the longer it sits, ideally overnight.

Makes about 1 pint

Notes:

-This can very easily adapt to other herbs.  Mint, cilantro, and chives would be winning.  It’s a wonderful, loosey goosey recipe.

-I seem to remember scribbling down the bones of this ranch recipe while listening to The Spendid Table a few years ago.  Though a quick recipe google search revealed nothing that Lynne Rossetto Kasper would now recognize.  I suspect it was adapted to the contents of my fridge at the time; the rest is history.

Thirty, Oneness of Self and Pasta

To those who tell you you're at your prime in your twenties,

You liars. 

Here is what will happen in your twenties.

You will wonder what you were thinking with that gold sequined tube top.

You will get mono from playing beer pong at a frat house. 

You will wish you never told your mother that you once ate a live goldfish for a can of Natural Light.

You will regret those pink suede pants. 

You will learn how to drink vodka in the shower and still graduate college with a 3.8.

You will then learn this 3.8 does not matter in grad school.   You will feel dumb reading Marx.  And you will realize that all that vodka probably didn’t help matters.

You will fret about not being married at twenty-six, twenty-seven, and twenty-eight. At twenty-nine you will stop caring.

You will come to understand that in order to be a good baker you have to measure things.

You will learn how to make a cake and you will think this will help you keep a man.  You will learn that homemade cakes can’t keep men.  And that thinking this way is stupid.

You will chronically worry about losing five pounds.  You will find that no one notices those five pounds but you.  And that the people that matter probably care more about how you treat strangers on the subway.

You will learn how to roast chicken.  How to kill cockroaches.  How to make friends with neighbors.  How to keep a rosemary plant alive.  And how to be happy in your skin, whatever that means.

This brings us to pasta, which is about as good a metaphor as any for all of this.  And it’s why I’m giving you my recipe without any instructions.  My pasta will be different than yours.

You may not form it in a food processor. You may not find it equally therapeutic listening to Bill Maher, Marc Maron, or The Splendid Table while you flatten your dough.  You may not hang it over mop shafts and broom handles.  You may not shape it into little nests and store it in your freezer.

Heck, you may not want to make any pasta at all.  How you get to whatever you eat will be unique to you. ¾ cup of flour to 1 egg is my recipe.  The rest is shaped by experience.  Whether it’s making tagliatelle or getting through your twenties, you can’t understand it until you’ve done it.  Mistakes and all.

So, yes, I turned thirty on October 1st.  And it finally feels like I have my rhythm.  My oneness of making pasta ... and of self.

Homemade Pasta

¾ cup all-purpose flour

1 egg

This is a per person ratio.  Fill in the instructions as you wish.

Notes:

-I  owe “oneness of self and pasta” to my professor, Carole Counihan.  She said it in class tonight and I must give credit where credit is due.  It was the missing link I needed to help bind this pasta post.  And she fits in beautifully. 

-I can’t remember where this pasta ratio originally came from.  But I know it’s been working for years.  I recognize it may be annoying that I don't list any instructions.  But the truth is that they probably wouldn't make much sense without spending time in my kitchen.