Kitchen Geeks

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/3092/chocolate-faces

Ingredients

0.5     Cup Oil (Sunflower or Safflower Recommended)
0.33  Cup Cider Vinegar (Do NOT Use White)
3-4     Cloves of Garlic, Peeled and Smooshed
2         Teaspoons Dried Italian Herbs (No Salt)
1          Teaspoon Sugar (Or to Taste)
0.5     Teaspoon Salt (Or to Taste)
0.25    Teaspoon Pepper (Or to Taste)

Instructions

Add all ingredients except oil to a food processor or blender.

Process or blend at high speed.

SLOWLY drizzle oil into processor/blender.

Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.

Bottle and refrigerate or use immediately. Shake the bottle before each subsequent use.

Tips

Use an oil that doesn't have much flavor of its own. I find safflower to be the best for flavorlessness. It's also great for cooking at high temperatures in case you want to use your dressing to marinate some chicken for baking. Olive oil doesn't refrigerate well and has a flavor not quite suited to this recipe.

You can use a wine vinegar but don't use white vinegar. White vinegar has no culinary use and should be restricted to usage as a household cleaner.

DON'T use synthetic sugar substitutes! Unless you want to gag mightily the first time you taste your dressing. Trust me when I say it WON'T go with the flavor. You CAN substitute honey, corn syrup, glucose, dextrose, or fructose. Agave nectar makes it taste really weird. Don't even try Stevia. A teaspoon of sugar only has 16 calories anyway, suck it up you wimp!

Don't try this recipe without a mixing device (blender, food processor). Mixing devices create a proper emulsion that only requires a minimum of shaking before each use.

Well, let's dust this blog off with a link that just came to me from Andy. Posted over at the Journal Sentinel website is an article detailing a set of Obama Family recipes (or have otherwise been attributed to them). Our new commander-in-chief is many things, but he definitely seems to be a fan of simple cooking.

In particular, I nodded in approval at the chili recipe for its use of not just a great range of aromatic spices and herbs, but for the use of red wine vinegar too. I use this in a lot of my cajun/creole recipes, such as my red beans and rice recipe, to add a little hint of red wine with the tartness that the vinegar provides.