I'll be honest, when I first looked at this recipe I thought it was odd. The reason I chose to make it was because I had all of the ingredients on hand. Since I have committed to making each and every recipe from the new Eat to Live Cookbook, I will be preparing a lot of food that I otherwise would just skip over--you know, things with names that don't resonate with me or lists of ingredients that just seem far too long, or even just one ingredient that I don't particularly love.
That's one of the points of this project for me personally--just make there recipes and block out the noise. I'm sure that I will be surprised by many of the dishes that left to my own devices I never would have tried in the first place.
And that's just what happened when it came to this dressing. I made it because I am committed to this cookbook and this way of eating and I happened to have all of the ingredients on hand. I tasted it after I made it and thought, "This is weird."
And then something awesome happened.
My husband and I put it on salads over this past weekend. And we fell in love with it. It's subtly sweet, not sickly sweet like classic Thousand Island dressing. This one's a real keeper!
Doesn't look like classic Thousand Island dressing to you? Don't worry about it!
If you don't own the book yet, here's an adaptation of Dr. Fuhrman's recipe done by Amy of Amy's Nutritarian Kitchen.
Ten Thousand Island Dressing
from The Eat to Live Cookbook by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, p. 87
Did I like it? Hell yeah!
Was it easy to make with readily available ingredients? yes
What specifically did I like about the recipe? It's hard to say exactly . . . but I crave it now. I packed some in a small container and brought it to work with me so that when I get my lunch salad I can use it instead of the dressing available in the restaurant I am going to.
What specifically didn't I like about the recipe? I was weirded out by the idea of blending up cucumbers into a dressing, and the recipe called for 1 cucumber, which made it very difficult to gauge exactly how much cucumber was going to actually work (I ended up using two Persian cucumbers because that is what I had on hand). I much prefer cup measurements of ingredients to things like "1 potato" or "1 cucumber" since raw ingredients range wildly in size!
Did my husband like it? Yes he did, very much!
Did my teenage daughter like it? She didn't taste it.
Did my eight or five year old try it? Um, has hell frozen over? But I think I am going to try to get them to taste it tonight as a dip for carrots. Please pray for us that they will at least taste it.
Would I make it again? Yes, yes, yes!
Is there anything I would do to improve on it if I made it again? I would like to add finely diced pickles to the recipe, to make it a little more like traditional Thousand Island dressing, but I'm not sure how "Nutritarian" pickles are since they are so salty.
Overall Grade (completely unscientific, I admit): A+
Have you made Dr. Fuhrman's Ten Thousand Island Dressing? What were your impressions? Leave a comment below.
Still don't have the book? What are you waiting for? These recipes are amazing.
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