Homemade Avocado Poppy Seed Salad Dressing

When I was a kid, I loved store-bought salad dressings and, admittedly, I was a bit of a dressing snob.  Wish-Bone was the only brand I liked…Italian, Thousand Island and those two sugary red dressings, French and Russian, that I could never really figure out the difference.  Thinking about it, they don’t really seem French or Russian at all.  But that didn’t matter to this 10-year-old, they were sweet and they were good on my iceberg and cheddar cheese salad.

So, when my mom or dad would decide to make homemade salad dressing, it just seemed wrong…like I had been deprived of oxygen or water or something.  I remember thinking, “You can’t do that.  You can’t make salad dressing.  It’s supposed to come in the wishbone-shaped bottle with the nicely printed label.  What is this stuff in this recycled mayonnaise jar?”  Needless to say, as a kid, I never fully appreciated my folk’s homemade salad dressings.  Much like, at the time, I didn’t appreciate the bike my dad hand-built for me from scraps we got at a junkyard.

Oh, how times change and how I look back thinking, “My parents knew what’s up!”  Not only did their dressings taste so much better, but that homemade one-of-a-kind bike, with the number zero front racing plate, was pretty darn cool.  Even the squirrels liked it.

These days, I may not be into building bikes, but I am all about creating new, homemade salad dressings.  Not only do they taste better, but also they’re much more cost effective and, unlike the store-boughts, you can make them in small batches so that they don’t sit around for months in your fridge forcing you to make that life or death call as to whether or not it’s still good.  Hyperbolic, yes.  But you know what I’m talking about.

The best part, though, is that you can get creative and figure out new combinations that work well with the salad you’re making. Forget the old standards…let make something new!  Think of them as craft dressings.  No, not that Kraft, but craft…like those small-batch, uniquely crafted beers that are popping up everywhere these days.

So, here’s a tribute to my homemade Avocado-green metallic bike and a really good salad dressing that pairs well with a Spinach Salad or any salad where you might want a dressing that’s a touch on the sweeter side.

I hope you enjoy!  Please leave your comments below and, as always, send me pix of your Tiny Kitchen Big Taste creations!