Make Your Own: Ranch Dressing Mix

I love Ranch dressing. Really. A LOT. So much that I really try not to have large quantities in the house at any given time, because I will eat it with a SPOON, ok? And Ranch dip is even BETTER. But since I didn't want to store opened packets of dry Ranch mix, I made 2 cups of dressing when I opened a packet. Two cups is about a cup and a half too much for me to have laying around. Ahem. Plus, there’s the chemical problem. Have you ever READ the ingredients on a packet of dressing mix? Scary stuff.

So I poked around on the internet for a while, cobbled together a bunch of recipes, and came up with my own!

The Recipe:
Makes about 1 ½ cups mix

1 cup dry buttermilk (found in the baking aisle)
2 tsp salt*
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp dried minced onion
4 heaping tsp parsley
Optional mix-ins**:
2 tsp dill weed
1 tsp dill seed
*My original recipe called for 4 tsp of salt, but it was WAY too much. Start with 2 and add more as you see fit.
**Regarding the optional mix-ins: sometimes I add these to the finished dip. There isn’t actually any dill at ALL in packaged ranch mix though, so this is strictly a personal preference.

Combine buttermilk, salt, garlic powder, onion and parsley in a bowl. Store in a container in the refrigerator until ready to use. (Dry buttermilk will actually go bad once it’s been opened, so always store it in the fridge.)



To make dressing:
1 – 2 Tbs mix
1 cup milk
1 cup mayo
Combine thoroughly and chill.

To make dip:
1-2 Tbs mix
1 cup sour cream
1 cup mayo
Optional mix-ins:
2 tsp dill weed
1 tsp dill seed
Combine thoroughly and chill.

Make Your Own: Marinara Sauce

Every once in a while I come across a recipe (or two or three) for something I take for granted. And when I realize how simple it is to make my own (ok, it’s not always simple, but it is in this case), I stop buying ready-made altogether. So this is my homemade Marinara Sauce. It’s FANTASTIC, if I do say so myself. ;)

The Recipe
Makes 3 cups

1 tsp, plus 2 Tbs olive oil
4 cloves minced garlic
1 28-oz can (or 2 14-oz cans) petite diced tomatoes*
¼ tsp sugar (don’t omit this; it keeps the garlic from tasting sour or overpowering)
3 Tbs chopped fresh basil

In a saucepan, sauté the garlic in 1 tsp of olive oil until golden. Add all the tomatoes, and the juice from the can, along with the sugar. Stir well, cover, and cook over low heat for 20 minutes. Uncover and stir again, using your spoon to break up some of the tomato pieces against the side of the pan (this will thicken the sauce a little). Add the basil, stir, and re-cover. Cook over low heat for 10 more minutes. Take the pan off the heat, add the remaining 2 Tbs of olive oil and stir gently to combine.

**Variations:
If you like a spicier sauce, add 1/8 – ¼ tsp red pepper flakes when you add the sugar.
If you’d like a creamier variation, add 1 cup of half and half when you add the olive oil, and heat through.

*If you prefer, you can use canned, peeled, whole tomatoes and crush them in your hands. This will give you a thin sauce with large chunks, whereas petite-diced tomatoes will give you a thicker sauce with more uniform chunks. Either way will work; it’s just a matter of preference. (In the picture below I used whole tomatoes, but only because I couldn’t find petite diced San Marzanos. Normally I use the petite diced ones for convenience.)

Random info: traditional Italian cooking usually involves adding the olive oil at the end of the dish, so that the flavor of the oil isn’t compromised. Also, if you’re serving this with pasta, do NOT rinse the pasta after you’ve drained it, and do NOT add oil to the boiling pasta water. Both of those things prevent starch from clinging to the cooked pasta noodles, and that starchy coating is what will absorb the sauce into the pasta. If you add oil to your pasta pot, or if you rinse the pasta, you wash away that starchiness, and the sauce won’t stick.

Ta-da! That’s it! SO. GOOD.