mulberryshoots

It’s Saturday and we enjoyed a casual platter of romaine, persian cucumber spears, sliced campari tomatoes with fresh basil, coarse pepper and a nice pile of cooked shrimp. The centerpiece of this feast was a bowl of homemade Ranch dip which made everything taste delicious! Alongside were some warm biscuits from the oven and after dinner, some chocolate chip walnut cookies.

This idea came from a Pinterest photo of a half head of romaine sitting on a board with some creamy dip topped with coarse pepper, some barbecued meats and so on. It stuck in my head as I went to the store and picked up some packets of Ranch salad dressing and dip mix. I’ve always liked the taste of freshly made dip because it contains sour cream, a little Hellmann’s mayonnaise and a little whole milk. How thick or thin it is depends on you. I mixed it up and it was a little runny, so I scooped in another big dollop of sour cream, stirred it together – and tasted it. Really yummy. It’s particularly good with cut up spears of the small Persian cucumbers – crunchy and so tasty!

I was thinking that if we had a bigger crowd, I could add some prosciutto ham, rolled up, deviled eggs with smoked paprika, and more fresh basil cut up and sprinkled all over along with other herbs from the kitchen planter: cilantro, parsley, thyme. Cut up fresh lemon adorned the plate – for squeezing on your shrimp or other vegetables.

We enjoyed this way of eating a lot – and will try other combinations for evenings when it’s too warm to cook (except to bake some biscuits!)