Rick Bayless' Roasted Garlic and Chile Dressing

I was raised in a family that showed how much they cared with food.  We lived to eat and boy did we.  Because of my family, I loved to cook from a young age.  I loved to cook long before I started teaching, but when I started teaching, I stopped cooking.  When I stopped teaching, I realized I had stopped doing something I loved, and slowly started getting my self-confidence back by experimenting in the kitchen.  I was unemployed and began finding myself in the cookbook section of the library and the kitchen as a way to stave off boredom and depression while on the job hunt.  I tried a Rick Bayless recipe and it felt like I had opened a world into a cuisine I had loved from afar, but had never even thought about making at home.  Enter Mexican Everyday, a cookbook that merges authentic Mexican tastes with modern sensibilities including quick meals, slow cooker recipes and all with a bent towards a healthier style of eating.

Every single recipe I have made from this cookbook has been a success, which has resulted in me buying his cookbook and causing many splattered pages within (always a good sign in my house.)   I've been eating salads for lunch recently, and have been experimenting with different dressings.  This dressing is my newest favorite, at least until tomorrow.  It will be fantastic as a dressing for a main dish steak salad, but will do just fine over just about anything or as a marinade. Just make sure whatever you are using will stand up to the kick of this dressing.  This dressing isn't a wimp, so don't you dare put this over something else wimpy! 

Empty jam jars are super useful for holding homemade salad dressing.

Roast the stemmed chile(s) and the unpeeled garlic cloves in a dry pan, turning frequently, until blotchy brown in spots - about 10 minutes.  Set aside until handle-able.

Once cool enough to touch, peel the garlic and roughly chop the chile pepper.  Combine the garlic, chile, oil, vinegar, salt and sugar in a blender jar or food processor.  I love my immersion (stick) blender for this application.

Process until smooth.  Taste and add more salt or sugar if needed. 


Ingredients:

4 garlic cloves, unpeeled
Fresh hot green chiles to taste (the recipe states 2 Serranos or 1 jalapeno, but I just used one Serrano)
3/4 cup vegetable oil (1/2 cup safflower oil, 1/4 cup olive oil is a suggested riff that I followed)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar (he recommends Sherry Vinegar, but I didn't have it and this was a suggested riff too)
Pinch sugar (not needed if using Sherry Vinegar)
Pinch salt

Caramelized Onion and Thyme Rolls

I love bread.  My favorite smell may be of freshly baked bread.  I love bread (how much you say?) so much that my grandmother taught me by telephone how to bake it myself when I went to college.   As in, emergency calls of a panicked college kid asking "are you sure it's supposed to look like this?"