Favorite Homemade Dressing and "Stretching" Dinner!

Hello!  Welcome to my blog!  My name is Jeanette and I am a mom of two.  Here are a couple of photos from this past week.  My son is 6 years old and was so happy to be riding a train at the Erie Zoo and Waldameer this past week!  My daughter is age 8 and enjoyed the opportunity to celebrate Father's Day with a family lunch out over the weekend.  We have lived in Erie for 9 years now and definitely enjoy many things about this region.  My husband is originally from CT and I grew up 2.5 hours southeast of Erie, down in rural Elk County.  He and I are opposites in many ways but somehow it all works! 

Over this past week I have been using a new homemade salad dressing recipe that is so, so, SO GOOD!  It is also super-versatile, clean-eating and quite inexpensive.  I will be sharing the recipe below!

I mixed up a batch of this dressing mid-week last week and we have enjoyed it many times since!  The first meal I was serving it was over a kale garden salad that I had made for guests.  That evening we enjoyed it again!  I took that same kale salad base and added some leftover quinoa that I had made over the weekend, some chicken prepared in our favorite marinade, this dressing and a dollop of guacamole that I had made the evening prior.

We have been eating clean since September 2013.  It does not have to be overly-expensive or complex!  In summary, clean eating really is quite simple!  Below is a basic marinade that we use often around here.  I am one who does not like my chicken to "taste like chicken" and this helps a lot with that!  Cooking chicken with this marinade and adding some veggies and at times a grain makes for an easy meal.

I used the homemade dressing a few more times over the past several days.  Tonight we finished it off while tossing it with an unexpected combination.  This is one of those weeks where I seem to have a lot on my mind.  I grabbed some groceries on Sunday but did not have a super-formulated plan!  I knew that I was bringing home workable ingredients and would figure it out as I went.  So tonight I was sauteing some chicken breast with vidalia onion and an orange bell pepper.  I had a cucumber but no more kale, romaine, spinach or whatever.  I also wanted to add a grain of some sort but was short on time and didn't feel like cooking one.  I looked at what I was working with for the dinner protein and thought that if I could stretch it a little bit, I would have enough to place in my husband's lunch for tomorrow.  So I looked for some beans in my cupboard and all that I found was garbanzo.  Beans are going to be one of your higher-quality carbs and also contain some protein.  Done!  No need to decide which bean to use... I just went with what I had and as always, gave them a thorough rinse before incorporating into my recipe.  And guess what??  This random combo turned out to be quite delicious!  And do you know why???  THE DRESSING.  For real.  You can put this one on anything!  The chicken, peppers and onions were warm as I topped the cucumber and beans with them.  I poured the dressing on top and - WOW - it became a delicious combo!

I am a coach with Team Beachbody and my team recently hosted a 5 Day Clean Eating Summer Salads group.  14 of the coaches on my team contributed recipes and credit for this recipe goes to my coach friend Jessica John.  SO MANY PEOPLE are loving this recipe!  It was first shared last Monday and has been a major hit!  

Favorite Homemade Dressing!

3/4 cup olive oil
1 cup red wine vinegar but you can use Apple cider vinegar. Both ways are great!
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp oregano
2 tsp basil
1.5 tsp salt
1.5 tsp pepper
1.5 tsp onion powder
2 tsp Dijon mustard 

** Shake all ingredients before serving.  

Dressing may be kept in the fridge 10-14 days while sealed tightly.