I just recently I wrote about how to make a quick and easy salad dressing made James Bond style just like his martinis: shaken, not stirred. Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of doing a cooking demonstration with some excellent veterans at Veterans Inc. in Shrewsbury. I started off the demo showing how to make the same dressing I wrote about last week, and just as I added the first ingredient, garlic salt, one of the guys piped up, “Hey, why are you using garlic salt? Why not use garlic powder and salt separately?” I answered that using garlic salt is easier because it's just one ingredient instead of two. “Yah,” the guy said, “except that there’s all that extra stuff in it. And besides, what if you don’t want all that salt - or even the sugar like you’re gonna’ add next. I’m a diabetic. So’s the guy sitting next to me.” 

Whoa, that stopped me like a lawn dart stuck in the ground. “So what would work for you?” I asked. “Just garlic powder,” he said. “There’s already salt and sugar in the mustard you’re gonna’ use. You really don’t need more than that.” Wow - great! So that’s what I did. I poured the garlic salt back into its container and made the dressing with just garlic powder, ground black pepper, mustard, oil and vinegar. Now, I'm a hound for flavor, and I’ve gotta’ tell you, though I thought at first the dressing would come out way too sour with no other flavor to support it, the dressing came out fully rich with flavor and zip - and was even simpler than the quick & easy dressing I’d just laid out a few days ago. I love when that happens.

To make the dressing, add the following to a 16-ounce jar:

1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder

1⁄2 - 1 teaspoon ground black pepper

3 teaspoons mustard

Next, add enough vinegar to fill the jar about half way full. Then fill the jar the rest of the way with olive, vegetable or canola oil making sure to leave enough air space at the top of jar so that the dressing can be shaken. 

Screw the lid on the jar tightly enough so that the jar won’t leak. Hold the jar firmly and securely with two hands, and give the jar a vigorous shake, preferably over the sink in case the jar happens to leak. Shake for about 10-15 seconds until the dressing is uniformly mixed together. And that's all there is to it.

To store the dressing, close the lid on the jar and just leave it out at room temperature. There's nothing in the dressing that's perishable, so there's no need to refrigerate it. Just make sure to give the dressing a quick shake before using it again.