The Story of a Sun-Dried Tomato Dipping Oil

Working as an In-Store Dietitian for Loblaws has its perks, I get to sample many of their products, including the higher end President’s Choice Black Label Products. The latest item I tried was the “Sun-Dried Tomato Dipping Oil”. It is an exceptionally flavourful dipping oil that is made of extra virgin olive oil, aceto balsamico di Modena I.G.P., sun dried tomatoes, garlic, herbs and salt. I know… it is not the Balsamico Tradizionale, but this is really good stuff. Bread dipped into it just melts in your mouth. But bread and oil is not exactly a complete meal. So, being a dietitian, I have decided to add some vegetables and protein to it. Yes, you guessed it – a Caprese Salad!

Good thing I always have Buffalo mozzarella on hand (due to a little addiction of sorts), as well as tomatoes and fresh basil.

The salad is made in 6 easy steps.
1) Cut tomatoes.
2) Slice mozzarella.
3) Chiffonade basil.
4) Drizzle dipping oil.
5) Toss.
6) Season with freshly cracked black pepper and sea salt to taste.

I love this Caprese Salad. Buffalo mozzarella is so smooth with a velvety taste, tomatoes provide a great sweet and slightly tangy undertones, and the fresh basil complements the flavours perfectly.
The salad always reminds me of warm weather, Italy and the Amalfi coast.

Ah… the Island of Capri… I miss you so…

It’s so easy, you think no one could mess this up, right? Wrong! Although it’s almost foolproof, I do have one word of advice (well, more of a sentence than a word) – do not keep the dipping oil in the fridge, as the olive oil will solidify and you’ll end up pouring pure vinegar on your salad. And that can leave a sour taste in your mouth – but that’s a completely different blog post.

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How a magnificent Caprese Dip was born

I love my food processor. And use it quite a lot. It’s so quick and easy – just throw everything in and mix until processed. This is how many of my dips and spreads come about. Most of the time it starts with leftover tortilla chips (for some reason I can never get the salsa-to-tostitos ratio right). Usually, my go-to food processor dip is hummus – and I make many varieties including roasted garlic, pine nuts, extra spicy, Greek olives. I even make a broccoli hummus (try it if you haven’t, it’s really good).

Well, yesterday I had leftover tortilla chips, and no chick peas. So I had to improvise. Given that Monday (a.k.a today) is my grocery shopping day, my fridge looked pretty sad. A few sundried tomatoes (leftover from a pasta I was making on the weekend), a little bit of cottage cheese in the tub, and some basil leaves that had “use us now or we’ll wilt” written all over them. What is one to do with such ingredients? Caprese salad comes to mind. But alas! No buffalo mozzarella (it never lasts longer than a few days in my household). And even though I am all about healthy eating, I wasn’t going to make a Caprese salad with cottage cheese. So I decided to make a dip. For a detailed recipe and nutritional info (it is low in bad fat, salt and cholesterol, and a source of omega 3 fats and protein) see Caprese Dip on my website. The short version of it is: throw all ingredients in the food processor, and voilà! A fantastic little appetizer is born.
It is magnificent as a dip, a spread, or as stuffing for mushrooms and peppers. So easy to make, yet so versatile! What’s not to love about it?!?

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