Challenge 4.2

Still struggling to find the time and the ingredients to tackle anything major for The Cookbook Challenge; sadly, 30-Minute Meals doesn't have any delicious recipes consisting solely of half a carrot, two cups of brown rice, and a large lump of blue cheese. However, I have come across a very useful tip, that I have immediately made my own, for making your own salad dressing. In the past, to make vinaigrette I have always worked off a basic recipe of 2 Tbsp acid and 5 Tbsp of oil, which involved a lot of mental arithmetic (not one of my favorite leisure activities) if I wanted to reduce or increase the amount. In her recipe for basic vinaigrette, Rachael Ray suggests the following ratio:

1 teaspoon of acid to every 1 tablespoon of oil

Ta da! Perfectly simple; easy to scale up or down; and no math.

Upon reflection, this is so blindingly obvious that I wouldn't be surprised if everyone else in the entire world knew about it besides me. The suggested ratio for making salad dressing is 1 part acid to 3 parts oil, which I knew; and 3 tsp = 1 Tbsp, which I also knew. I had just never put 2 and 2 together (or, in this case, 1 and 3). And in the event that you haven't either, I share this info with you, since it alone has made this whole exercise worthwhile for me--definitely the equivalent of learning a great new recipe.