The Dressing Makes the Salad

I have a challenge for you: never buy a bottle of salad dressing again.  Or at least try this dressing, and then think about it.  Store bought salad dressing is a money guzzler, can sometimes be full of preservatives, and isn't as good as homemade salad dressing.  Also, making your own salad dressing is easy and takes barely any time!  Most of the ingredients are probably already in your fridge!  When I moved back home after college I stopped eating preservatives entirely.  This recipe for dressing is a creation of my dad's.  It is amazing and it has evolved over time.  I absolutely love this dressing... it seriously makes me want to eat salad every day.

The Kitchen

Some of you may know that I have recently moved into the city (yay)!  This means that I have carefully chosen an apartment to fit my needs... which means I have a kitchen.  I use the table as a counter and the coffee table as a place to cool things fresh out of the oven, and I absolutely love it.  Yesterday my best friend Emily and I decided that we were going to cook enough food to last both of us a month!  It was insane, absolutely insane, and we pulled it off.  My next blog posts will be covering all of the food we made!  It really is possible to eat healthy and be extremely busy... it just takes planning!  Here are some photos of the cart and the finished products!

Healthy Weeknight Pasta

I absolutely love to cook, I really do, but there are some nights that I just don't want to get into a big project.  But I don't want to be stuffing my face with unhealthy stuff either (this is way easier said than done... cheese and bread, oof).  I was in the grocery store a couple of weeks ago and I was perusing the aisles (does anyone else, LOVE grocery shopping), when I came upon a glorious thing: whole wheat, quinoa pasta?!  YES.  It is only made of whole wheat flour and quinoa flour.  AND, it's delicious.

Bruschetta

There are few dishes that are easier and more delicious than bruschetta.  There are many different ways to make it and they are all delicious!  Yum. I made this recipe awhile ago, and since I am moving tomorrow, I thought this would be a great easy recipe to post!

Canning Tomatoes

When a recipe calls for canned tomatoes, usually I run to the grocery store and pay $1-$2 for a can.  Last fall I got the idea in my head that I had to can my own tomatoes.  I just needed to understand what it took to really get a can of tomatoes myself.  I feel like it's easy to forget that not so long ago people had to can tomatoes to survive!  So I went for it.  Ian and I drove out to the farm I get my CSA from to pick up our 1/2 bushel of tomatoes.  When we got home from our very long road trip I went for it because it was bothering me that they were just sitting in their box, unloved.

Tomatoes!

It is October so tomato season should be over, right?  Well, in Chicago it has been a gorgeous fall and because of this, there are STILL tomatoes coming from my tomato plant!  These pictures aren't of my tomatoes, but they are of some amazing tomatoes that I found at the farmers market earlier this season.