𝕎𝕙𝕒𝕥'𝕤 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝔻𝕚𝕟𝕟𝕖𝕣?
𝐅𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫: "𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐈 𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐳𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟." (𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐥𝐲: "𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐍𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧... 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐲 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐒𝐭*𝐩𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐛*𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐞'𝐬 𝐅𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫!")
I had a half a box leftover (or is that "half a box un-leftover for you pessimistic types"?) of one of those pre-washed salad mix things and decided I wanted to try something "a little different" with it for dinner tonight.
The salad mix was a "Super Greens Blend", with baby chard, baby spinach, and baby kale. To save on any extraneous dishware that I would have to wash later, I simply added some sliced Kalamata olives, pepitas (dry-roasted, shelled, and unsalted pumpkin seeds for you Gringos and Gringettes), and two slices of Swiss cheese (which I simply hand-shredded because I am even too lazy to get out a knife to cut it into slices or bite-sized pieces) right into the plastic container/box/whatever they call those things. I hardly ever have any standard salad add-in junk (like tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, cucumbers, celery, etc.) on hand, or I would have added some other items, too.
Anyway... this is the "a little different" part... I usually have about three to four different pre-made bottles of salad dressing stuff in my refrigerator, but I decided to make my own salad dressing "from scratch". The "scratch" in this case being: Sriracha ketchup, maple syrup (the good 100% Vermont/Canadian kind), and a splash of the olive brine/liquid from the open jar I was already using. I originally was thinking about going with some Balsamic vinegar (which is another item that I usually do have on hand) for acidity, but figured the brininess of the olive liquid would work just as well. I then cracked some fresh peppercorns (these happened to be oakwood smoked pepper from Vietnam) into the dressing, stirred it all up, and poured it on top of the salad "bowl".
D*mned if it did not come out actually pretty tasty, too. I went a little light on the maple syrup so as not to make it too sweet, but I probably could have used just a skosh more to balance out the spiciness of the Sriracha ketchup.
All in all I was rather pleased with my dinner... and, for an easy clean-up, I only had the fork I used to eat the salad.