Ed liked it

In honor of all my sailing friends hanging out on Catalina Island this week, I won’t rename the salad dressing I concocted yesterday. I thought the ingredients were weird to begin with, but as is my nature, I had to do my own thing to make the blend even more bizarre. Licking it from my finger to compare it to the store bought, Ed declared it “just as good”. Regardless of the odd ingredients, he liked it.

Making my own Catalina accomplished another thing too. Just last week, when I finally cleaned my scuzzy fridge, I wondered why I had so much ketchup and I almost tossed the antique raspberry syrup. These unlikely salad additions were main ingredients in my faux Catalina dressing. The most reasonable internet recipe I dug up for a knock off called for 1/2 cup of sugar. I didn’t have a full half cup and Ed asked wrinkling his brow, “A half cup of sugar. Isn’t that a lot?” So, I used the aged pancake syrup to get rid of it and made Ed feel better when I did not pour all the sugar we had into the blender.

• 1/4 cup “what do I do with this” raspberry pancake syrup
  (fruity substitute for the more traditional salad addition — sugar)
• 1/3 cup “why do I have two bottles of this” ketchup
• 1/2 cup peanut oil
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• dash paprika
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp chili powder
• 1/4 tsp celery seed
• 1/4 tsp dry mustard
• tbsp grated onion

Blend these things like crazy and they taste very much like Ed’s favorite Catalina dressing. The color is a bit dark, more red than orange, probably because of the raspberry pancake syrup and, believe it or not, it is not quite as sweet as the real deal. So, because I added “fruit” and no actual sugar, I will call my gastronomic delight Gourmet Lite Catalina dressing.

I will not toss another plastic Catalina bottle into the bin this year. Remember the gyre.

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