Salad dressings, Sammy J Peppers and Substituting

No new recipes to report, unfortunately, today I have leftover Indian food (I know, I KNOW) and a great homemade pasta salad I made two days ago.  I used a bottled dressing, but I think I may declare this the "Summer of Dressing!" because the one I purchased (feta & oregano), while delicious, really doesn't stand up to the pasta. On lettuce, it's great, on pasta, I had to add far too much extra salt, pepper and herbs to get that tangy flavour.  I've been collecting dressing recipes over the years, but I'll be damned if I've ever tried making one!  That's all going to change :)

This is the one I'm going to try first. It's the recipe of a family friend that keeps getting passed around my hometown - easily a favourite up there!

Poppyseed dressing

1/3 cup of olive oil

1/3 cup apple juice

1/3 cup liquid honey

1/4 cup of Dijon mustard

1/4 cup white vinegar

1/2 tsp of each, salt and pepper

1-2 tsp of poppy seeds

shake well and store in the refrigerator.

I went shopping with a girlfriend in Burnaby (a suburb of Vancouver) this past weekend to Metrotown - easily the biggest mall in British Columbia.  I'm not too familiar with the restaurants out that way, but we wanted to have lunch somewhere with a patio, and Sammy J Peppers was right across the street with a lovely patio.  Their menu wasn't terribly vegetarian friendly (http://www.sjpeppers.com/), but I was extraordinarily impressed with how helpful our server was with making their menu work for me.  Other than a veggie burger and salads, nothing on the menu was vegetarian.  However, she assured me that the chefs would make any of their flatbread pizzas and any of their "bowls" vegetarian or vegan for me, and every type of burger they had was available using a veggie patty.  Pretty impressive.  In my experience, I'd say this sort of accommodating happens only about 25% of the time I eat out, and it is ALWAYS worth a mention and a shout-out.  Because of that, I will definitely be back.

I ordered one of their flatbread pizzas that normally came with capicolla and chorizo, and substituted basil and fresh tomatoes instead. All in all, it was a LOVELY little lunch - a flatbread covered with mozza, banana peppers, basil, jalapenos, fresh tomatoes, caramelized red onions, feta and a few more things I can't remember.  My lunch companion had more than a few pieces of it :)