Anyone know a good salad joint?

Cooking From Scratch : Salad Dressings

There are a few reasons why I make some of our salad dressings from scratch.  They usually taste better, you have more control over the ingredients (I like lots of vinegar, not much sugar), some aren’t available commercially (broccoli salad), sometimes you only want one meal’s worth.  It’s very easy for condiments to get out of control in the fridge and I don’t want bottles of dressings going bad because its’ something we only use occasionally. There is also the environmental factor of homemade. When you make dressings from scratch, you aren’t using plastic bottles. It also gives you a way to use all those epicure spices you bought at parties. Come on, I know you have them too! Our local store recently changed brands of dressings and no longer has our favourite dilly dip, so now we make it with the epicure lemon dilly mix. (There’s a lot of 3 onion mix in the cupboard too!)

Salad dressings don’t take long to make, and they aren’t hard. All you need is a jar with a tight fitting lid. They taste best if you make them at least half an hour ahead so the flavours can blend. A few hours is even better. My very first homemade salad dressing is from the Asian coleslaw that became so popular in the 80s. The one that you make with icheban.  I was probably only around 10, so my help in the kitchen was mostly around making salads and peeling vegetables. Crunchy cabbage salad was a staple menu item when we had company or for potlucks. It was in the days before you could buy a bag of shredded cabbage, and one cabbage makes a lot of coleslaw! It wasn't until I was 15 that I knew you could cook raman and eat it like noodles!

After I was married, I graduated to Caesar salad, because you can not buy it with out anchovies in it. (Maybe you can now if you find a vegan one, but 20 years ago, vegan wasn’t mainstream!) Having a variety of interesting salad dressings also keeps my work lunches from getting monotonous.  It also means we are more likely to have a salad for dinner. A homemade dressing will last you about a week in the fridge. Dressings made with extra virgin olive oil will solidify in the fridge. This is normal. Just let it warm to room temperature on the counter and shake well before using.

We have been tweaking our Caesar salad dressing for years, and when we got into our oil and vinegar collection, our dressings took on a life of their own! Add a bit of grilled chicken or shrimp and you have a meal!

Balsamic Caesar

Balsamic Caesar is rich and thick

2 Egg yolks

6 Garlic cloves

1 T Dijon mustard

1/4 c Balsamic vinegar

1/4 c Mayonnaise

1/4 c Olive oil

2 T Lemon juice

1 tsp Worchestershire sauce

Simpler Caesar

1 c Olive oil

1/4 c Lemon juice

1 Egg

1 T Dijon mustard

2 T Garlic powder

Black pepper to taste

When you make salad dressings that have an egg or mayonnaise as an ingredient, you want to whisk them together, shaking isn’t enough to blend them. If you can, use an immersion blender or throw the ingredients into a blender.

According to my cookbook, my mom got this recipe from our neighbour, Kathy. Thanks Kathy!

Crunchy Cabbage Salad

Flavour packet from chicken raman

2 T Sugar

3 T Vinegar

1/3– 1/2 c Oil

1/2 tsp Black pepper

Salad

5 c Shredded cabbage

1/4 c Slivered almonds (best if toasted)

2 T Sesame seeds (best if toasted)

4 Green onions, chopped

1 pkg Raman noodles, dry and crushed

If we aren’t going to eat all the salad in one meal, I keep the salad and dressing separate. Cabbage doesn’t get soggy like lettuce, but the dressing becomes insipid and flavourless.  If I don’t have raman, or need more dressing, I use chicken oxo powder in place of the flavour packet.

I am asked for my broccoli salad recipe more than any other. It’s definitely satisfying enough to have for dinner.

Broccoli Salad

1 head Broccoli

8 slices Crispy Bacon

1/4 c Raisins

1/2 c Onion, carmalized

8 oz Old cheese

1/4 c Pine nuts, pumpkin seeds are a good substituion

Dressing:

2T Dijon mustard

1 c Mayonnaise

2 T Red wine vinegar, apple cider or balsamic vinegar works too, but the flavour will be different

1/4 c Sugar

1-2 cloves Garlic

6 T Olive oil, Blood Orange Olive Oil is our favourite

Salt & Pepper to taste

The last time we had leftover dressing, we used it as a hollandaise sauce on eggs.

Greek Salad

1 pint Cherry or grape tomatoes, or 2 c. chopped tomato

1 cucumber, or 1 pkg of mini cucumbers

1 c Kalamata olives

1/4-1/3 c Olive oil

1/2 Red onion

3/4 c Feta

1-2 Garlic cloves

2 T Red wine vinegar

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1 tsp Oregano; 1 T if fresh

Cole Slaw
Recent chemistry experiments required some red cabbage. Which led to a cole slaw craving. This was not a recipe I previously used, but I didn't have enough dressing in on hand for dinner, so a little searching and a little tweaking, and now we have a creamy cole slaw dressing that we like better! For sandwiches, I'm a Miracle Whip girl, but in recipes, I find it overpowering, so I use mayo.


1/2 c Mayonnaise 
2 T Sugar or honey
1 1/2 T Lemon juice
1 T Vinegar (I used apple cider)
1/2 T Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp Black pepper
1/4 tsp Salt

What's a nice person like you doing in a joint like this?

Joints are the places where bones connect to each other. One of my favorite anatomy trivia—our gums are a joint, because they connect our teeth to our jaw! The tissues that hold bones together are ligaments. They are not as elastic as tendons and muscles and they don’t have a very good blood supply. As a result, ligaments take a long time to heal. An over stretched ligament is a sprain. When joints are out of place, they are dislocated. A bad sprain can be worse than a break because the ligament may never spring back to it’s original length. It’s like an old elastic that lost it’s stretch, or a baggy bathing suit!

There is a lubricating substance in joints called synovial fluid. It is released through movement. You may have heard the expression “motion is lotion”. It’s true. Think about the last road trip you were on. Hours in the vehicle, in one position. When you get out, you feel “stiff and creaky”, because you are! One of the reasons we have joint pain as we age is that we are moving less.

The different ways and degrees that a joint can move is called the Range of Motion (ROM). When there is an injury or impediment, therapists measure the ROM as an indicator for tracking the progress of healing. Recovery is slow and gradual. Sometimes people feel like they aren’t making any progress at all and it can be frustrating. It can also lead to impatience that leads people to push themselves too far and make things worse.

I have a great tip for tracking ROM improvement. I will use a shoulder injury as an example. When you first start your therapy, stand against the wall and lift your arm as high as you can with no pain. Put a piece of masking tape with the date on it. Every few days, repeat.  The difference for each day may only be a centimetre, but after 2 weeks, that’s a lot. It’s important to recognize your progress to stay encouraged.

I have observed over the years that the clients who have restricted range of motion suffer the most as we age. It restricts what we feel capable of doing and increases our pain. If we do nothing else, we should be stretching and doing something to keep our circulation going.

Conditions that affect the joints:

• Illnesses, such as the flu, cause achy joints—it’s usually how we tell if it’s a cold or the flu. 

• Some medications can cause swelling in the joints. 

• Autoimmune diseases may inflame joints or make ligaments more fragile. 

• People with naturally tight ligaments are more likely to break an ankle, 

• People with loose ligaments are more likely to get a sprain or dislocation. 

• Pregnancy causes our ligaments and joints to soften and separate (thank goodness!), which can cause some post-partum issues when they are trying to go back together.

• Previous dislocations, tears, or other injuries make joints more susceptible to injury.

• Muscle and tendon injuries affect the joints that they cross over.

• Restrictive activities (pointy toed, high heeled shoes can cause bunions).

• Frozen shoulder is a painful conditions which slowly restricts movement of one or both shoulders until it is unable to move at all. It may last weeks, months or years, and then just goes away. Doctors do not know what causes frozen shoulder.

There is a method that some massage therapists are trained to use, called joint mobilizations. It uses a variety of techniques (stretching, steady pressure, oscillations) to gently encourage the joint to move back into place. If you have ever had a vertebrae “pop” or a knuckle “crack” during a massage or a really good stretch—that’s what I’m talking about.

There is another little thing in your joints, called the bursa. Think of bursa like a blister. It's a fluid filled pillow that is under the point where a tendon would rub on the bone.

Please, please, please do not force your joints to crack! You can pinch nerves or damage soft tissue. Habitual cracking can over stretch ligaments.

Hot or Cold?

The simple answer is, it depends. (Makes me thing of the Pease Porridge nursery rhyme - some like it hot, some like it cold...)

Arthritis, even though it has the -itis suffix which means inflammation, feels better with heat. Keep it moving to keep it lubricated.

Sprains like cold, keep it still to let the ligament rest.

Bursitis likes cold to reduce inflammation. Keep it still to reduce friction from the tendon and bone.

Tendinitis likes cold when it's acute (new) and contrasting hot and cold after (...nine days old). 

Stiff joints like heat and motion. If it feels clicky or snappy (highly technical terminology), heat and stretch the muscles close by.

Take good care of your joints, they will complain the loudest if you don't (literally, you can hear them!)