foodtvandme.com is the unofficial food network fansite with news, reviews, and my attempts at those great recipes you see on tv.

This week’s attempt was a simple one: salad.  I always love making salads in a pinch for a meal, but I usually use dressing from a bottle.  Today, I thought I would take a que from the quick-cooking queen herself, Rachael Ray, and make one of her lovely little salad dressings for a tasty, healthy weeknight meal.

Weekly Recipe Attempt:  Iceberg Lettuce Chopped Salad with “French” Dressing

This is simply a salad.  I suggest adding whatever you want for the bed of the salad.  I added canned, sliced beets because I love them and they happened to be in my pantry.  Corn would have been delicious on this salad, but that I did not have.  Rachael had cucumber, carrots and radishes.  I didn’t have any of these things on hand, so they didn’t make the cut.  The radishes would have been a pretty addition to match the dressing.

As for the dressing, it actually did taste like French dressing.  It may not have been that brilliant red color like most of the bottled stuff, but it looked real.  And I knew what was in it, which is always a plus. I think a dash or two of hot sauce woiuld have spiced up the dressing, but I thought of that after I sat down to eat.  I was too hungry to go back to the kitchen at that point to add another ingredient.

All in all, I give this recipe a 6.  I know the score is pretty low, but this recipe lacks the “wow” factor.  I do like it’s versatiltity, but let’s face it, it’s a salad.   Most salad ingredients are pretty interchangeable.  I don’t know that I’ll make this particular salad again for a while.  It was a little to boring for me.