Honey-Mustard Salad Dressing

When planning the menu for our Valentine’s Day dinner featuring dishes made with honey, “A” suggested that I make honey mustard salad dressing. Personally, I don’t care for honey mustard salad dressing. I loathe anything that contains the words “honey mustard”. As far as I’m concerned, mustard should be spicy, not sweet.

I hit the internet, searching for honey mustard salad dressing recipes. Anything calling for mayonnaise was eliminated. Honey, mustard and mayo should never, ever be in the same dish according to my taste buds. I’m gagging just thinking about it. I finally settled on a recipe with the fewest possible ingredients that surprisingly included garlic. I love garlic. You can’t go wrong with garlic.

I was a little hesitant about the coarse grained mustard. I had visions of a crunchy sweet mustardy dressing. Luckily, the “grains” are not crunchy, they just add bits of color. Even more surprising, I liked the end result. This is one of the best salad dressings I have ever tasted! It’s so good that when “A” and I were invited to a potluck garden party, we settled on making a veggie and dip platter. “A” supplied the veggies, all but the broccoli grown in her plot at Rutgers gardens, and the platter and I supplied the dip in the form of my new favorite honey-mustard salad dressing.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!

Honey-Mustard Salad Dressing
(source: BHG.com)


¼ cup honey
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar or white vinegar
2 tablespoons coarse-grain brown mustard
1 clove garlic, minced
½ cup salad oil


In a small mixing bowl or blender container combine honey, white wine vinegar or white vinegar, coarse-grain brown mustard, and garlic. Beating with an electric mixer on medium speed or with blender running slowly, add ½ cup salad oil in a thin, steady stream. Continue beating or blending about 3 minutes or till thick.

Makes 1 cup.

Recycle: honey jar, vinegar bottle, mustard jar, salad oil bottle

Compost: garlic skins

Blue Cheese Dressing

I had an opportunity to do something that I haven’t done in years: host a dinner party. Well, almost. Someone else hosted, I cooked. By the way, NEVER EVER cook in someone else’s kitchen, especially someone who is not a cook. Unless of course, you bring all of your own pans and utensils.

Like any dinner party, this one featured a salad. Another hint: NEVER EVER allow someone who doesn’t cook to “chop” the salad. They take those instructions seriously! We ended up with chunky salad. You TEAR the lettuce. You THINLY slice, not chunk, the tomatoes and green pepper.

Luckily, my non-cooking friend likes blue cheese dressing. It gave me a chance to make a recipe that I haven’t made in probably 30 years. Blue cheese dressing is ridiculously easy to make and since it has to be made ahead of time, is a real time saver. Just keep one thing in mind when serving it. Take it out of the refrigerator ahead of time so that it can warm up to room temperature. When refrigerated, it becomes almost solid.

Verdict: Yum! This one’s a keeper!

Blue Cheese Dressing
(Source: Betty Crocker Cookbook)

1 package (4 ounces) blue cheese, crumbled
1 package (3 ounces) cream cheese, softened
½ cup mayonnaise or salad dressing
⅓ cup light cream (20%)


Reserve ⅓ cup of the crumbled blue cheese. In small mixer bowl, blend remaining blue cheese and the cream cheese on low speed. Add mayonnaise and cream; beat on medium speed until creamy. Stir in reserved blue cheese. Cover; chill at least 3 hours to blend flavors.

About 1 ⅔ cups.

Recycle: mayonnaise or salad dressing bottle