Grow Lettuce Grow: buttermilk ranch dressing

homemade ranch dressing

so what does one do once they succeed in making homemade mayonnaise?? well you proceed to make yourself some homemade ranch dressing. oops, no chives, no problem. remember those little rows of leeks that you thought would not grow. well they did and are in serious need of thinning. but don't throw them away!!!! chop them up just like chives and put them in the new wonderful and luscious homemade ranch dressing. now all we need is some buttermilk. so here's where the buttermilk journey started and ended with in moments. the raw milk dairy was completely out of buttermilk, as well as cream and butter (apparently the word is out and cream and butter are by order only now). so i could either make it myself or run to the store. since it would take days with the raw milk to produce buttermilk with it's own inherent cultures (set out clabber, mix with more milk, sit out to clabber, mix with more milk, sit out to clabber, etc...), i was off to the store. i was planning on getting happy cow's buttermilk but the expiration date was the same day i was going to purchase it, so i got this other brand from a local-ish company that does not use hormones (or so says the container). and it comes in a groovy glass container that i can reuse to culture more buttermilk. so soon we will have jars upon jars of various milk products sitting on the counter culturing their little hearts out. till then, back to the ranch dressing. pretty easy stuff. take some garlic, chopped up baby leeks, salt/pepper, dollop of homemade mayo, squeeze of lemon juice, and some buttermilk. mix it all together and let it sit in the frig over night and then enjoy with some fresh lettuce from the garden.

oooohhh! look at that creamy buttermilk.

oh yeah i made pimento cheese as well (minus the pimentos).
homemade mayo, shredded pepper jack cheese, salt/pepper, squeeze of lemon juice, and sweet vadalia onion hot sauce.

lettuce, brussel sprouts, and leeks.
see how the leeks really need to be thinned out.

oh you pretty baby leeks.
oh so tasty for my dressing.

doesn't that front row look much better.

check it out!!!!
more peas. they are actually producing.
let's see if they can keep it up with the hot temps this weekend.

i just can't eat this swiss chard fast enough.
i think i will try to do a version of creamed spinach but with swiss chard.

don't let me fool you with all these lovely pictures from the garden. between not being a patient person, trying to be as chemical free as possible, and really not knowing what and the hell i am doing out in the garden, i am starting to have some troubles. for one thing my tomatoes are really stressing me out (i'll get to that in the next post) and now i've got SQUASH BUGS!!!!! ugly little horny egg laying shits!! i think i've squashed (hehehe) about 8 of them now. oh they freak me out. i'm simply picking them off with my fingers, and yesterday with a car key cause the little sucker tried to get away and hide in a little crevasse between the stem and the dirt, and throwing them in the yard and then stepping on them. you'd think that the bug carcasses would be a nice warning to the others, but no, they just keep coming. and they're always doing it. sex craved squash eating manics. oh, maybe i should start feeding more squash to boyfriend ray!!!!!