On our way back from our Chesapeake Bay anniversary getaway, we decided to take an old fashioned Sunday drive back to Old Town and made various lazy stops along the way. I thought it would be nice to have the family over for a summer supper when we got back so we made a couple of foodie stops. Our stops actually felt very “Ina-and-Jeffrey-take-a-Sunday-drive-through-Virginia.”
We went to an independent grocery store called Hall’s in Colonial Beach and stocked up on some summer salads — we brought a soft sided cooler, bought some ice, and Miles packed up the chicken, macaroni, and broccoli salads to serve when we got home.
Our other foodie stop was at a rather sophisticated and very photogenic farm stand outside of Montross, Virginia. The place was actually so photogenic I wondered if they had an instagram consultant.
We got corn (Miles’ favorite), cantaloupe, a sugar baby watermelon, and gorgeous tomatoes of different varieties — I confess I was having a full-on Ina moment when smelling the delicious heirloom tomatoes at the farm stand.

To compliment the tomatoes I decided to make my version of a Lemon Vinaigrette Ina Garten uses with her Avocado and Grapefruit Salad (I know that mix sounds kinda’ odd but it’s delicious!). I swear I could drink this dressing!
Three major differences between Ina’s dressing recipe and mine:
- I have a little more acid
- I don’t use freshly ground pepper (we’re not pepper people)
- You have to whisk it all in a measuring cup because, for the life of me, I can’t figure out the fraction of the olive oil added!
Lemon Vinaigrette
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice about 1 1/2 lemons
- ?/? cup olive oil — fill to the 3/4 marker
- 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 3/4 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
from the cupboards . . .
- 2 cup measuring cup
- little whisk
- tablespoon
- 1/2 teaspoon
- 1/4 teaspoon
preparation (make sure you do it in this order) . . .
- fill the measuring cup to the 1/3 marker with freshly squeezed lemon juice
- fill the measuring cup to the 3/4 maker with olive oil
- add a heaping tablespoon of dijon mustard
- add 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- add 3/4 teaspoon black pepper
- whisk until emulsified
- refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving
serving . . .
- whisk or shake before serving
Super easy salad dressing to make. And it keeps for several days in the fridge. How great is that?!! lol.

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