Catalina French Dressing

It is another one of those cold, dreary and rainy days on the east coast. The weather today is nothing short of miserable. Having a morning full of doctor appointments and a trip to Costco certainly didn’t start my day off on a good note. However, I did pick up the "Pasta cookbook from the Silver Spoon" so you can expect more homemade pasta soon. One recipe for oat flour pasta has already caught my eye and may be on the menu tomorrow.

Happily all my errands are now finished for the day and I am home to relax and kick my feet up. At our house relaxing for me means I am going into the kitchen to work on a new recipe.

I have been trying to explore different salad dressing because we eat so many salads every week. Today I returned to the “The Professional Chef” for another salad dressing to veganize. Catalina French dressing was the one that leaped off the page to me today. I haven’t had this since I was teenager but I wanted to make a grown up version.

The original dressing is emulsified by use of egg and Dijon. In place of the egg I decided to use raw cashews. In place of brown sugar I decided to use agave. Finally I reduced the fat level significantly. If you are wondering if this tastes like the bottled dressing we had as kids the answer is not exactly. I intentionally made this dressing less sweet and used more allspice. However, I liked the end result and thought you might too. Here is what I did.

Catalina French Dressing
Makes 7/8 cup or 14 tablespoons

Ingredients:

½ cup raw cashews
½ cup water
1 1/2 T agave
1 T cider vinegar
½ T paprika
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 pinch garlic powder
1 pinch onion powder
¼ teaspoon allspice
salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

Place everything in the blender and process until completely smooth. Taste for seasoning and adjust before decanting to a covered container to refrigerate until needed.

Nutritional Information (per tablespoon):

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 21.75
Calories From Fat (59%) - 12.89

Total Fat - 1.54g
Saturated Fat - 0.27g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 5.62mg
Potassium - 33.17mg
Total Carbohydrates - 1.62g
Fiber - 0.37g
Sugar - 0.31g
Protein - 0.69g

Comments:

This is definitely an adult version of the Catalina French Dressing I grew up with. The dressing is less sweet and has a nice background of allspice. I don’t think this would be a big hit with children, but adults may be another story.