Herbalicious

I've been cooking and baking for a week straight - the Thanksgiving day feast was exactly that - a pretty damn sumptuous feast that was worth all the work.

One of the highlights of the meal was the salad; regular readers of this blog know I love a good salad and boy, was this one a winner, thanks in part to the herby dressing I made - recipe to follow.

See, there were a lot of leftover herbs after I seasoned the turkey and the stuffing, so first I made this yummy herb and roasted garlic vinaigrette, then I made herb butter, and then tonight I used the leftover herb butter in scalloped potatoes - perfect comfort food for a cold and rainy day.

Here's the vinaigrette recipe. The herbs I used were finely minced fresh rosemary, sage, thyme and parsley, but you can just use it if ya got it; no need to be highly particular in your herbal selection.

So it goes like this:

Take a good heaping tablespoon or two of your finely minced fresh herbs and put them into your food processor, along with the zest of one lemon, and a couple cloves of roasted garlic. You can use fresh garlic if you prefer, but I love the rich mellow flavor of slow roasted garlic (note: if you don't have a food processor, just mince everything finely and whisk it in a bowl).

Next, add a fat grind of pepper, a generous sprinkling of kosher salt, something like 1/8 to 1/2 teaspoon, depending on your taste, and just a touch of olive oil. Now pulse the food processor a couple times to blend the ingrendients, and with the motor running, add 1/3 cup of olive oil.

Keep the motor running, and add two tablespoons red wine vinegar. Now give it a little taste to determine if you'd like to add a bit more vinegar. I like it tangy so I use three tablespoons, but some prefer it not so tangy. It's your salad damnit, so go to town! You'll be glad you did. And now you're done, so toss your greens and enjoy. You can also drizzle this over steamed vegetables or potatoes, or even rice. You can also drop a dallop into your soup.

So - after freezing some of the leftovers and then making turkey broth and herb butter and herby salad dressing, I still had food to use up...including russet potatoes and heavy cream, so you know what that means... ultimate scalloped potatoes! That recipe's coming in my next posting. Right now, I'm busy devouring said potatoes, and trust me... you're going to want to, too! So stay tuned for the recipe.