Posts Tagged ‘condiment’

A restaurant near us makes this dressing to go along with their wings. It’s delicious! I tried to make my own version of this as I couldn’t find a recipe for it anywhere. It came out close to what they serve.

Tequila Lime Blue Cheese Dressing

Ingredients:
1/2 cup of mayonnaise
1/2 cup of sour cream
1/2 cup of blue cheese crumbles
1 shot of tequila
zest of one lime
juice of one lime
1 clove of garlic, minced
Sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste
Directions:
Add all ingredients to a container; mix until well combined. Cover and refrigerate for two hours
before serving.

I actually put some of this in my black bean tacos Friday. Nice kick to it. I don’t know if I’d eat it on a salad, it is a bit spicy. But as a dip or an addition to tacos it’s awesome. Remember you can always save what is left in your can of chipotle peppers in adobe. Put it in the fridge for a couple of weeks or put it in a Ziplock and freeze it. Then you can grate what you need into dishes right out of the freezer.

Chipotle Ranch Dressing

Ingredients:

 
3/4 cup mayo (low fat is fine)
3/4 cup sour cream (low fat is fine or you can use plain yogurt)
2-3 canned chipotle peppers with 1 Tbsp sauce
1 Tbsp lime juice
1 small bunch of chives
Small handful of cilantro
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 to 1/2 cup buttermilk
1 Tbsp ranch dressing mix (I use Penzey’s, this is optional but it ramps up the flavor)

 
Directions:

 
To make the dressing, place all dressing ingredients except the buttermilk in a blender.
Blend for 10 seconds. Check consistency and blend in buttermilk if desired (less buttermilk for
dipping, more for dressing).

 
Store in an air-tight jar in the fridge for a week or more.

I had a coupon (of course!) for blue cheese crumbles so decide to make some dressing. I used it as a dip too for my Parmesan chicken nuggets.

Blue Cheese Dressing

Ingredients:

 
1/2 cup of mayonnaise
1/2 cup of sour cream
1/2 cup of blue cheese crumbles
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 clove of garlic, minced
Sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste

 
Directions:

 
Combine the mayonnaise, sour cream, blue cheese crumbles, vinegar, minced garlic, and sea
salt and black pepper, to taste; mix until well combined. Cover and refrigerate for two hours
before serving.

This was a lot of work to put together, but it was worth it. Appetizer night was fun and I’ll do it again. I brought the platter out on our coffee table and my hubby and 2 1/2 year old dug in. They especially liked the pizza puffs. I forgot to make the taquitos. Next time I’ll throw those in.

Appetizer Night

Baked Zucchini Strips

Deviled Eggs

Potato Skins

Pizza Twists

Peperoni Pizza Puffs

Outback Ranch Dressing (Copycat)

Cheese Sauce

I found the recipe at Serious Eats. I’ve wanted to make this for a long time but just didn’t have the right opportunity. I got around to it last night and it was great. I didn’t use the entire can of evaporated milk because I like my sauce thick.

Cheese Sauce for Cheese Fries and Nachos

To reheat the sauce, microwave it on high heat, stopping and stirring every 30 seconds until it’s
fully melted.

Ingredients

8 ounces extra sharp cheddar cheese (or a mix of cheddar and pepper Jack—see note),
grated on large holes of a box grater
1 tablespoon corn starch
1 (12-ounce) can evaporated milk
2 teaspoons Franks Red Hot or other hot sauce

Directions

Add cheese and cornstarch to large bowl. Toss to combine. Transfer to medium
saucepan. Add 1 cup evaporated milk and hot sauce. Cook over low heat, stirring
constantly with whisk until melted, bubbly, and thickened (about 5 minutes). Mixture
will look thin and grainy at first but will thicken and come together after heating. Thin to
desired consistency with additional evaporated

I found this recipe over at Budget Bytes. She has a ton of great stuff, I highly recommend subscribing to her blog. I put off making this because my hubby is a very picky eater. Turns out he loved it and wants it in the monthly rotation. Just the honey mustard sauce itself is damn good. I served it with corn and homemade fries. You can easily adjust the amount of chicken, I ended up using three pieces and there was plenty of sauce left.

Honey Mustard Chicken Strips

Ingredients:

2 Chicken Breasts
1 cup mayo
1/3 cup honey
¼ cup mustard (any variety)
¼ tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp paprika
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cups panko bread crumbs

Directions:

In a bowl, combine the mayo, mustard, honey, garlic powder, paprika, and some pepper. Stir
until combined and season with salt to your liking. Divide the sauce into two portions, half will
be for the marinade and half for the dipping sauce. Refrigerate sauce until ready to use.

Trim the chicken breasts of excess fat and slice diagonally into ½ inch thick strips. Place sliced
chicken in a bag or bowl with half of the honey mustard sauce. Stir to coat. Refrigerate for at
least 30 minutes or overnight.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with foil then place a wire cooling
rack on top. Pour panko crumbs into a bowl. You can season the panko with some salt and
pepper as well.

Coat the chicken strips with the panko. Do not wipe any excess honey mustard off. Place strips
on wire rack as they are breaded. Discard the leftover honey mustard sauce that the chicken
was marinating in.

Bake the chicken strips in the oven until the crumbs have turned golden brown, about 20-30
minutes. Serve with reserved half of honey mustard sauce.

I’ve wanted to try this for a long time. I did some research into the copycat recipes. There are some differences in opinion on using milk or buttermilk, and paprika or cayenne. I made some substitutions. I used the buttermilk option. I for some reason do not have cayenne in my pantry (which I will fix soon), so I used the Arizona Dreaming mix from Penzeys instead. I keep Penzeys buttermilk ranch dressing mix in my pantry so I used that. It came out pretty darn close. I’m sure if I do the cayenne next time it will be near perfect. The big thing you HAVE to do is let this sit overnight. If you don’t the flavors won’t have time to meld together and it will taste more like mayo than anything else.

Outback Steakhouse Ranch Dressing (Copycat)

Ingredients

1 tablespoon hidden valley ranch dressing mix
1 cup mayonnaise (real mayo like Hellmans, not Miracle Whip)
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 teaspoon coarse black pepper
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8/ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Directions:

In a medium bowl, combine all of the ingredients and mix well.
Chill for at least 1 hour.  It’s best to let this sit overnight to bring all of the flavors together and let it thicken up.

I love mustard! My girlfriend at work passed along this recipe and I had to try it. It’s very spicy if you eat it right away so let it mellow out for a day or so.

Spicy Home Made Mustard

Yields 8 oz, or approximately 24 teaspoons
2 tablespoons yellow mustard seeds
2 tablespoons brown mustard seeds
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Generous pinch of salt

1) Combine ingredients in a glass or ceramic container with a lid. Plastic is okay, but metal is a no-no.
2) Let stand overnight or at least 2–3 hours.
3) Puree in a blender or food processor until the desired consistency is reached.  Add a drizzle of water to keep the blades whirling.
4) Pour back into container and let it mellow for a day or so.