Creamy Italian Dressing

I don’t have a whole lot to say about this recipe

other than to say that sometimes, I just want to try a different dressing on my salad

and that sometimes, I prefer to make my own instead of going all the way back to the grocery store

Even if I do love Wegmans

so I look up a recipe online

and gather the necessary ingredients, which may include a lot of mayonnaise and some red wine vinegar

some sugar

some Italian seasoning (makes sense, considering I was making a creamy Italian dressing)

some garlic powder

some black pepper

and some salt (though I forgot to take a picture of it). It was an interesting mixture of things in my food processor

but it looked more normal after I blended everything up to the point where the onion was smooth

The reviews all said to wait overnight to taste it, so I didn’t try the dressing until the next day.

Maybe it’s because I know that this has raw onion and mayonnaise, but I tasted them and I thought that was weird. But I think it’s because I was looking for them. I actually think the dressing is pretty good. It was good enough to serve other people this weekend, and my little brother said he liked it, so I guess that’s good enough for me.

Here’s the recipe. I’ll put it in the recipes tab, as well.

Maple and Brown Sugar Glazed Ham

Hubby and I were lucky enough to receive some goodies from Omaha Steaks for Christmas, all wrapped up and frozen and waiting for a time for us to be ready for them. That time would have come earlier if I hadn’t forgotten about them, but it did eventually come.

One of the goodies was a big ol’ boneless chunk of ham. I’m sure that cut probably has a legitimate name, but I don’t know what it is. Rather than simply heating according to the directions on the package, I decided to attempt to make a glaze for it. A quick search online and I found a decent recipe. I quartered it, since it was intended for a full-size holiday feast. I knew that it would still be a lot, but dividing the quantities by 4 was about the extent of my willingness to do math.

First, I melted one and a half tablespoons of butter. In retrospect, I am an idiot and that should have been one and a half teaspoons. I could do the math (I wrote it down correctly), but I just couldn’t get beyond that, apparently. Okay, here’s more butter than I needed.

I added a quarter cup of maple syrup. God, I love maple syrup.

Then 1 1/2 teaspoons (yes, teaspoons this time) of honey and a tablespoon of brown sugar. I know it looks like I put two in there, but that’s because my measuring spoon was 1/2 tbsp. The 1 tbsp one was dirty. Boo yah.

Anyway, heat it up a bit and let the sugars melt together.

Okay, here’s the thawed ham, chilling out in a greased dish.

I poured the sauce over the ham and baked it, according to the directions on the package. I think the recipe for the glaze recommended basting, and that probably would have been great, but I just wasn’t willing to be that involved. I did put some aluminum foil over top, though, as per the recipe.

And this is what it looked like at the end:

Sliced up all nice and paired with some rice and a salad.

My salad included a sliced avocado just because I could and I wanted to indulge. I whipped up a batch of that maple-dijon salad dressing, and that pairing was divine. The sweetness of the ham glaze with the sweetness of the salad was perfect.

I tried to balance the sweetness with a bit of saltiness by putting soy sauce on some rice. The effect was bizarre and not nearly as pleasant as I would have expected. The soy sauce was a bad choice, though it wasn’t horrible.

And that was dinner!

The glaze was really nice. It was more watery than I expected or really wanted, but I suppose that could have had something to do with putting three times as much butter as I was supposed to. But it was sweet and yummy, and the ham was juicy.

I followed up with a 100-calorie Skinny Cow vanilla ice cream with caramel, from our freezer. I wasn’t the only one who thought it looked delicious.

Maple-Dijon Salad Dressing

I found this salad dressing on the Pioneer Woman's blog and fell in love with it. Her salad looks delicious, but I was somehow ridiculously fixated on this dressing.

It has maple syrup.

That should answer all of your questions about why I suddenly and desperately needed to make this. Anything with maple syrup is bound to be amazing, in my opinion.

I feel a little weird about reposting something she’s already blogged about, but after some deliberation, I went for it. I did email her several weeks ago to ask if she minded, and she didn’t respond, so she can’t care too much. I want to make this again at some point, and I think some of you may be interested in making it, too, so I’m going for it.

Plus, I took pictures and I like to share them.

Start off with Dijon mustard. Seems to be a staple in salad dressings.

Add just enough maple syrup to balance out the zing from the mustard and give it just a hint of sweetness.

Add some apple cider vinegar…

And some oil, along with salt and pepper. Probably not enough, since I never know how much to add.

And shake it all up!

I did my salad differently than in the original recipe. This is my daily, go-to salad: baby spinach, dried cranberries, and sliced almonds. But I will give Ree credit, as she put crumbled blue cheese on her salad and I think that is so delicious. I love doing that, but alas I didn’t have any.

It was a really nice change from my normal Greek dressing, which is tart. The sweetness was just so welcome without being overwhelming. Creamy without being too much, just very simple, subdued, and pleasant.

I wasn’t sure if I should refrigerate it or not. So I did.

Maybe I shouldn’t have.