With three weeks of raw food cleanse under my belt, I can confidently say I know a thing or two about salads. When you eat one every day for lunch, you tend to want something different than the oil/vinegar/dijon combination I was tossing my greens with every day. When I heard that T.Marzetti was coming out with a “Simple” salad dressing, I wanted to try it. I gave up store bought salad dressing long ago because the list of ingredients was longer than my arm so it just wasn’t worth the risk when I could mostly recreate the taste with items from my own pantry and fridge.
BUT (yes, this is a capital but) my kids love ranch. Quite frankly, the husband loves ranch too but he’s old enough to be talked out of such things. My kids love dipping their veggies in ranch and while they will eat them without it, I was feeling kind of guilty sending them to school with naked broccoli florets and carrot sticks. (Dear God the Hippie reputation I must have among their peers.)
Now, I know all my Nutrition School friends will read this post and send me 10,ooo recipes for vegan, healthy, raw (whatever) ranch dressing but the simple truth is this is one area where I plead guilty to not trying enough. I don’t want to figure out how to make ranch dressing. If I don’t just skip it, I just want to buy it and throw it in the stinkin’ lunch boxes without fear of carcinogens thankyouverymuch.
I mean, sometimes I just want to throw my hands up and scream, “I make my own bread, chop my own organic/locally grown carrots sticks and bake my own freakin’ granola, can’t I just get a break here?!?!
Yes, apparently I can. Thank you T.Marzetti for creating Simply Dressed. These dressings include minimal ingredients and you can identify them all. (Huzzah!) There are quite a few delicious flavors like strawberry poppyseed and champagne. They even have a cole slaw dressing that looked intriguing. This time though, we only tried ranch as lunch-veggie-dipping was the mission for this mom. I was skeptical because it didn’t look thick and creamy like the full blown fat and preservative full ranches of yore. Guess what? It tasted pretty good on my fingertip (all I would allow to pass these cleansed lips) and the kids (the toughest critics) were all thrilled. They had no idea there was a difference and when they asked why I was giving them ranch again I explained about T. Marzetti’s simple formula and even they were happy to be strange ingredient free.
Color me impressed with these new Simply Dressed Dressings. It’s not as pure as what comes right out of my fridge, but it’s pretty close and way easier when packing three lunches. See, you can maintain flavor without all those nasty chemicals! T. Marzetti proved it and allowed me to not have to do it all.
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