I don’t know how many times I’ve been sucked in to ordering an overpriced special over the years because it came with a salad that was served with a fresh raspberry vinaigrette. I’m a sucker for berry-based treats. I always have been.

This is a fun and quick gourmet salad dressing you can whip up in your blender. One thing I like about this recipe in particular is that after just a few seconds of heavy blending, the ingredients stay suspended for a fair bit. This is helpful if you are trying to get your table set ahead of time and need to be tending to the rest of dinner. Here’s all you need:

¼ cup of cider or raspberry vinegar, 1 cup light olive oil, 1 clove of minced garlic and 2 – 3 tbsp of fresh raspberries.

Put everything in a blender for 10-15 seconds to puree and aerate. Pour into the serving container of your choice. (Personally, I think using a spouted gravy boat really adds to the drama if you are assembling the salads for guests as part of your presentation strategy.) This is great to serve with a salad featuring a few simple ingredients such as red leaf lettuce, red onion and heirloom tomatoes. Not only does that help keep the cost of the overall dinner to a minimum, it really gives you a chance to feature the full flavor of the homemade version of this stuff, which I can assure you is superior.

Also, since buying fresh berries in the produce section can be a bit pricey, this recipe is a nice way to get a major bang for your buck when buying those teeny little packages of bush berries. Freeze the extra and you can use them later to recreate the same dressing. If you were using the store bought berries in shortcake for example, you’d need quite a few. This recipe really maximizes your investment.

Variations: I can’t see any reason why you couldn’t substitute nearly any type of wild berry to make this even more exotic, or to custom tailor the dressing to your menu. I tried it with fresh blackberries, and if I do say so myself . . . it was pretty fantastic. I haven’t seen my husband that concerned over what was happening with the leftovers in quite some time. He wanted to make sure he knew where the extra was for lunch salads the next day.

This recipe makes a generous sized batch, and you can easily serve 4-6 people with it. Try serving your salad with a nice bottle of wine and some quickly prepared fresh stuffed pasta if you need major style in a short time. Again, the name of the game is presentation. Get out that pepper grinder and specialty cheese grater and romance the heck out of the plate assembly. Your guests will really dig it!