French Dressing

This past weekend, we met some of our family at a basketball game in Grand Rapids and then we all went over to my SIL's house for dinner afterwards.  We had a delicious real food taco dinner.  I brought along some homemade french dressing to make taco salads.  Its another Heavenly Homemakers recipe.  I love Laura's recipes because they're so simple, yet taste so great.  This was no exception.  It tasted really good, as written below.  I will definitely be making this often, since french dressing is Kevin's favorite (though he tolerates my favorite, ranch, happily, too).  This dressing should keep really well, though... longer than my ranch dressing... so I'm guessing I'll be making this dressing quite regularly. 

Anyway, like I said, this tastes great the way it is, but I think I will do a little playing around with it.  I just used organic store-bought ketchup this time since I need to make a new batch of lacto-fermented ketchup.  It'll be awesome to make this with lacto-fermented ketchup so that we can gain the benefit of the probiotics.  I also want to play around with the seasonings.  I think we'd probably prefer a little less celery seed and I want to add some smoked paprika and a little onion powder.  I think I'd also like to try this with different vinegars.  All in due time, though.  I'll be sure to post any updates if we find something we like even better.  For now, we are really enjoying this version!

Homemade French Dressing

3/4 cup ketchup
2 Tablespoons sucanat or brown sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon liquid smoke
1 Tablespoon ground celery seed

Put all ingredients directly into a pint sized jar. Put the lid on and shake it well. Refrigerate. Its best to make this dressing at least a couple hours before you need it.  Even better would be the day before.  That's what I did.  You need to give it time to meld together and really develop a great flavor.