Disordered Dressing and other ex-diet refugees.

I admit it. Along with the hundreds of cook books, I have a shelf of diet books. Partially because I have a background in nutrition, but mostly because I am perennially 10 pounds over where I’d like to be.  Weight Watchers, Atkins, Paleo, Hungry Girl, Sugar Busters, all the biggies are there, and truthfully while all the books have recipes in them; I’ve cooked very few things from them. So many of them are so full of disgusting substitutions, like half the stuff from Hungry Girl, that once you try making one or two of the recipes you’ll never want to try them again. Please strike me dead if I ever even CONSIDER making onion rings encrusted with Fiber One. Those diet books are are huddled together on a bottom bookshelf like refugees in the hold of a ship.

I do have a “diet” recipe that I use quite often, for a salad dressing that actually didn’t come from a diet book. I’m sure it’s in one somewhere, though. It’s simply equal parts good quality balsamic vinegar and Dijon mustard. The recipe was actually explained to me by the mother of a young woman being treated for an eating disorder, as the only dressing the girl would eat. I was doing a clinical rotation at the time in a residential facility, and I was taking down notes from the mother who was talking about her daughter’s fear of fat in her food.

Later in the week, I was out of time one morning, and wanting a salad for lunch, I mixed the two ingredients in the bottom of my lunch container and took it with me. It’s delicious. Since then, I’ve messed with it, added some oil, a bit of garlic and a dab of sweetener, and it’s a good, quick go-to dressing. It’s good even in its original form, without any of my changes. You can however mess with it infinitely with different vinegars, mustards, seasonings, sweeteners etc. Hence, the name I’ve given it: Disordered Dressing.

So while I rarely have anything in my repertoire that came from a diet book, this little refugee is delicious.

Disordered Dressing

1T good Balsamic Vinegar

1T Dijon Mustard

1 teas. sugar or sweetener

2 teas. Olive Oil

Dash of garlic powder

Stir it all together until the sugar dissolves. Makes enough for 1 good sized serving.