By Kevin Williams
Amish gardens are usually bursting with lettuce, salad-worthy carrots, radishes, onions, and more. In fact, almost the entire Amish garden is a salad in soil. But, you can't eat these goodies without dressing.  Okay, MOST people can't stomach a salad without dressing. I have an in-law that will NOT eat salad with dressing. Something about the texture. So she'll eat dry, crunchy lettuce salads. No thanks.  To me, a salad is not salad without an amazing dressing. Bleu cheese is probably my singular favorite, but kudos to ranch and vinegarette. Still, other creamier dressings forged from experimenting and testing and trying are probably the most amazing of all.
Start out with a big head of fresh lettuce
This dressing has some great zip
Carmon'Hacker's Homemade French Dressing
Carmon Hacker from Trenton, Ohio shares one of her favorite dressings with us, one you can smother on that Amish lettuce and those tomatoes. Oh, and - this is just me - but you HAVE to have some component of cheese, shredded cheese, on your salad. Okay, back to Carmon. She shares this dressing recipe with us and it sounds amazing. She invited me to stop by and try it, but I was elsewhere so, unfortunately, I missed. Good news, I'll get to make it myself. Here is what Carmon has to say about the dressing:
This is one of my all-time favorite homemade dressings. Both sweet and tangy, with a velvety smooth texture, it is a perfect accompaniment to any salad and is even delicious drizzled on fresh fruit. Growing up in the Sixties and Seventies, I remember that this was often the house dressing for local steakhouses, and sometimes they would serve it with crumbled bleu cheese for a wonderful burst of flavor!
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- ⅔ cup ketchup
- ½ cup each, white vinegar and sugar
- 2 Tbsp. finely minced onion
- 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
- 1 tsp. each salt and black pepper
- 1 tsp. dry mustard (or 1 Tbsp. regular prepared mustard)
- 1 tsp. paprika
- Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and stir with a wire whisk. (The oil will not mix in completely at first.) Next, place the mixture in a jar with a lid, which will allow you to shake it just before serving it, and refrigerate at least an hour before serving. Store in refrigerator.
SWEET AND SOUR SALAD DRESSING - Delicious!
FOUR AMISH CHURCH SALADS -Â These are all staples of church suppers.
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Neva M
My dad got that recipe years ago, only theirs was just ketchup, oil and sugar... We addeda lilt vinegar to cut thr sweetness, and lemon mayonnaise and pickle relish for thousand island...
Kevin
Sounds good, thanks for telling us about it!