Ginger Carrot Salad Dressing
We never skimp on the salad dressing when we're eating a gorgeous salad. And why would you? Fat carries flavor. Besides that, high-quality fats like olive oil are a source of important nutrients in their own right. If you need another reason, many of the most important nutrients in leafy green vegetables are fat-soluble, which means they won't be absorbed properly if you don't eat them along with some sort of oil.
What are ginger carrots?
They're naturally cultured vegetables. As the name suggests, they're carroty and gingery, with a sour, lightly salty twang many people find to be addictive.
By employing beneficial cultures like the ones that are present in sourdough bread and yogurt, these naturally pickled vegetables are not only preserved, they are also enhanced. Through the process of fermentation, the bio-availability of certain minerals and complex carbohydrates are increased, while vitamins K and C are synthesized outright. Alongside all that, a host of beneficial probiotics and pre-biotics—gaining increasing renown in scholarly articles on the human microbiome—are introduced each time you take a bite of these naturally fermented foods. Simple, delicious, and nutritionally dense, cultured vegetables are also safe for people who cannot tolerate lactose.
So next time you eat a gorgeous salad, make sure you're picking up on all the vitamins A, D, K, and E present by dressing it with this vibrant orange, tangy, and probiotic-rich salad dressing. Get all the #localorganicdelicious ingredients Bluestem Farm.
Ingredients
1 cup lightly packed naturally cultured ginger carrots, such as Bluestem Ferments*
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup lemon juice
Add all the ingredients to a blender and process until smooth. If you wish, you can thin the dressing with a few tablespoons of tap water. (The thicker version of the dressing makes a great dip for vegetable platters.) Makes about 1 pint.
You can also read this article in full in our Eat Like a Farmer column in the Petoskey News-Review.