Healthy Dressing in 2023

The New Year is here and with it comes the typical New Year’s resolutions. Of course, the most common resolution is to eat healthier to lose weight. For this, many people turn to salads.
A salad can mean many different things. To many, a salad starts with iceberg lettuce. This very common lettuce contains almost no nutrients. Many people often add a store-bought salad dressing. Most commercial salad dressings are made with low quality oils such as vegetable, canola or soybean. Should it be a surprise that some ready-made salads served in restaurants have as many calories and fat as regular meals?
This new year, I urge everybody to think about the ingredients that make up the foods they buy. Of course, I especially advocate that you just make your food yourself. This gives you the ultimate control over the quality of food that you eat.
As manager of our Wednesday Canyon Country Farmers Market and Saturday Old Town Newhall Farmers Market, I focus on bringing quality foods and ingredients to Santa Clarita direct from local farms. Special attention is always paid to bring in the freshest and highest quality.
Our farmers markets carry up to two dozen different varieties of lettuce. We do not carry iceberg lettuce. We carry beautiful tasty varieties such as little gem, red oak, speckled romaine and many kinds of salanova. We also carry lettuce mixes that contain special greens such as arugula, spinach and sorrel. These varieties of lettuce and greens have up to five times the amount of nutrients as cheap iceberg lettuce.
Lettuces like this are not found in supermarkets for one simple reason, they have a short shelf life. Iceberg lettuce lasts over a month in cold storage. Since the trip from field to supermarket shelves typically takes at least a couple weeks, the ability to last is why we see this lettuce everywhere. Compare this to a farmers market where the trip from field to customer takes about 24-48 hours.
When it comes to salad dressing, making your own salad dressing is one of the easiest things you can do. We use a base of high quality and heart healthy olive oil. Our markets host a third generation olive oil farmer from Clovis, Verni Farms. They grow the olives, pick them, press them on their farm and bottle the oil. They then bring it to our markets and sell it themselves.
In this issue, I present one of my favorite salad dressing recipes. This is a basic Caesar salad dressing. While it starts with an olive oil base, you can change the ratio of other ingredients to suit your personal taste. This dressing was developed about 100 years ago in Tijuana, Mexico at an Italian restaurant. The original version does not contain anchovies or parmesan cheese. Though you certainly can add these, we like the dressing just the way it is.
Salads are a great base to add whatever you want to create a complete meal. Our farmers markets are a great place to find all sorts of fresh vegetables including varieties you will not find in stores. In winter, add seasonal fennel and citrus to a salad. Add delicious wild caught shrimp or pasture raised chicken to your salad. Our markets have all of this every week.
The Old Town Newhall Farmers Market operates every Saturday from 8:30 am until 1pm in the parking lot of the Old Town Newhall library. The Canyon Country Farmers Market operates every Wednesday from 4pm until 7pm in the parking lot of the Canyon Country Community Center. Both markets are certified farmers markets and operate year round, rain or shine. The markets can be found on Facebook, Instagram or at www.newhallfarmersmarket.com and www.canyoncountryfarmersmarket.com.

Ingredients:

6 Cloves garlic
1Teaspoon Kosher salt
1 or 2 Egg yolks (optional,
add for a creamier dressing)
Juice from 1 lemon
1Teaspoon Dijon mustard
1Teaspoon Worcestershire
1 Cup Extra virgin olive oil
Pepper to taste

Directions:

Add all the ingredients to a blender. Blend at high speed for 20-30 seconds. Use immediately and store leftovers in the fridge. Unused dressing will keep for several weeks. If using egg yolks, use within one week.

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