I’m making refried beans as the basis of my meal tonight (they’re cooking now; I’m not exactly sure what’s going to happen with them), but I wanted a tossed salad to go along with it. I realized I didn’t know of any particularly Mexican salad dressings, so I threw this together. It turned out pretty well so I figured I’d post it.

Lime Jalapeno Dressing

1/4 cup olive oil
1 small pickled jalapeno (preferably homemade), minced
2 Tbsp pickled jalapeno brine
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
juice of 1/2 to 1 small lime
1 tsp agave nectar
salt, to taste

Mix all ingredients together and adjust any of the ingredients to taste.

I served it on a simple tossed salad …

… but now that I’m all into grilling, I’m thinking it might be a good marinade for grilled veggies.

These are the pickled jalapenos I used:

I bought a pint of them – they are yellow – at the farmer’s market a few weeks ago and when I realized I wasn’t going to be able to use all of them, decided to pickle them (basically I’m pickling everything that crosses my path this summer). I think I just stuck them in cider vinegar with some peppercorns and hot pepper flakes (the peppers were fairly mild). The following week I made “real” pickled jalapenos by looking up recipes and seeing how you are “supposed” to do it (this involved cooking the jalapenos). I photographed that one, so when they’re ready (two more weeks), I’ll do a post.

Torticia helped me eat my salad.

Sorry, no pics of Gomez tonight; he was sleeping during salad time. He is, however, helping me type this post, although he’s really hindering more than helping. Now I need to extricate myself from Gomez and this laptop and go check my beans.