When it comes to cooking, I’ve had a doozy of a week. For meatless Monday I made baked falafel, substituting canned beans for dried — big mistake! They were way too moist and turned into chickpea pancakes in the oven. Strike one.
On Wednesday I used my only Greek cookbook (first recipe I’ve made out of it and I’ve owned the book for years) to make a baked lamb and pasta dish that was just so very, very disappointing. The pasta got all mushy and slimy. We could barely eat it. Geoff and I spent the whole dinner talking about what went wrong with the recipe, but there’s no way I’m going to try to doctor it up and make it again.
Thursday I made the leftover lamb into sandwiches slathered with tzatziki sauce (yumm!) but as a side dish made oven fries that stuck to the baking sheet and became a huge mess. Grrr!
Then Friday night I made Geoff a happy birthday pavlova for Saturday’s supper. I love pavlovas but haven’t baked one in years. We had guests coming on Saturday, berries were looking good at the store, so it seemed like it would be a great birthday treat. I baked it up, set it on the counter but noticed it slowly sinking as it cooled… I forgot to let it crisp up in the oven for an hour! Noooo! It was a gonner. I threw together a batch of so-so mini cupcakes in the morning.
How could I have so many cooking mishaps in one week? Well, among all the barely edible bad food I churned out this week, one thing, I’m happy to say, was amazing. And yes, it’s this salad dressing.
I remember seeing Jamie Oliver make this dressing on The Naked Chef (old school!), so I googled it and found a clip — hilarious seeing young Jamie! I whipped up this dressing and couldn’t be happier with it. Maybe I’ll stick to making salads next week.
- 2 large lemons
- 1/2 cup crème fraiche
- Salt and pepper
- 1 medium garlic clove
- 2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1/4 cup olive oil, plus 1 tablespoon
- Romaine or other crispy lettuce leaves, washed
- Remove the zest from one of the lemons and chop it up finely. Then slice the lemons in half.
- Add 1 tablespoon of oil to a hot skillet over medium-high heat and add the lemons cut side down. Cook until dark brown on the cut side. Then juice the lemons with a citrus juicer or by hand, being careful to strain out any seeds.
- In a medium bowl, stir together the lemon zest, creme fraiche, salt and pepper. Use a fine grater to grate in the garlic. Add mustard and lemon juice and then stir in the olive oil.
- Serve in a bowl on the side with crispy lettuce leaves, letting everyone dress their own salad.