Basil honey dressing

 

This is a good one to pull out if you've got a bumper crop of basil about to probably take a dive as the weather trends cooler.

Basil honey dressing

From “The Spoonriver Cookbook,” by Brenda Langton and Margaret Stuart. Spoonriver is no more, but the cookbook remains. The recipe notes that you could substitute rice or champagne vinegar.

Ingredients
1 cup olive oil
1 cup white balsamic vinegar
1 cup packed basil leaves
¼ cup chopped onion
1 tablespoon dry mustard
3 tablespoons honey

Method
Blend all ingredients in the blender. 

Rating: Very bright flavors. The honey helps balance out the vinegar and onion bite, but this can still pack a bit of a wacka-wacka punch.  This is a fairly thin dressing, which personally I don't mind, but if you're looking for something fairly viscous, this isn't it.

Similar to: The dressing on this arugula fennel salad, which gained a place in my dressing rotation, and has the advantage of staying mixed.

Pair with: This worked well on a chopped salad with grilled chicken breasts, blue cheese crumbles, tomatoes and wonton strips.

 

What else I'm cooking this week

It's peak produce-preserving time at our house, so these usual suspects came into play:

Pepperonata makes a wonderful condiment, a great pizza topping with goat cheese and works as a pasta sauce sprinkled with feta.

Ditto with cherry tomato confit, which freezes beautifully, and makes great use of all those volunteer mini tomatoes.