Cilantro Lime Dressing

It's possible that I have just made the most amazing dressing on the planet!  

About a month ago, I read a friend's gushy post about how much she loved CILANTRO and totally agreed.  And if I hadn't been paranoid that she would have thought I was a big copycat, I would have posted an almost identical tribute to cilantro on my own blog, because I LOVE that stuff, too!

But today, I found yet another way to love cilantro, and technically it's not copying her anymore because I'm writing about cilantro DRESSING...besides, it's been 6 whole weeks since there's been a post about cilantro from anyone, so it's about time, I think.

We were invited to a BBQ/Pool Party this afternoon and the hosts were serving typical BBQ food...burgers, hot dogs, etc.  So I offered to bring a side dish.  Initially when I volunteered myself for that, my ulterior motive was to make sure that there would be something non-meaty for me and TCD to eat.  But, it turns out, some little birdie told them that we're vegetarians and they're making marinated, grilled portobello mushrooms for us!  YUM!!  How nice is that??  I would have been happy with chips and my little side dish.


This morning, I threw together this salad.  It's kind of a combination of a few recipes I found on Google because they all sounded like they needed each other.


Here's the salad recipe...


1 box bow tie pasta (the little ones are cuter, but I could only find the regular sized ones)
1/2 cucumber, peeled and diced
1 C frozen corn
1 can black beans, drained
1 C edamame
grape tomatoes, halved (I'm not sure how many??  maybe 3/4 C?)


I cooked the pasta and then threw everything in the bowl and tossed.  I didn't even defrost any of the frozen stuff because the pasta was still hot when I threw it in.  The salad looked really pretty and colorful, but it needed some kind of dressing and the ones on the original recipes didn't sound great.  So I blended a few and came up with this...


Dressing


1/3 C olive oil 
1/4 C lime juice (I happened to have fresh key limes leftover from dinner last night)
2T balsamic vinegar
1 clove garlic
1T sesame oil (because I LOVE that stuff)
1/4 C cilantro (it might have been more than that)
1/3 C honey
1/2 t salt
1/2 t pepper

I threw everything in the blender except the olive oil and blended on high until it was all combined and everything was green.  Then, with the blender still running, I carefully opened the top (because in the past, I have not always had luck with that sort of thing) and poured the olive oil in gradually.  That's called emulsifying.  It just makes it so that the oil doesn't separate from the other stuff. 


I tasted it before I dressed the salad just in case it was gross.  It wasn't!  And then I let Spell Girl taste it (because she was the official lime juicer today) and she LOVED it, too!


Here's what the whole salad looked like when we were done...it would be prettier with red tomatoes, but I only had yellow ones.

I was seriously tempted to lick the inside of the blender after I poured the dressing on the salad - it was THAT good!  (I restrained myself, though.)  There are so many layers of flavors in it...lime, garlic, honey, sesame...serious YUM!!   It's the most amazing dressing I've ever had!!  I might have to use it on EVERYTHING. 


Pictures from the Pool Party: