Diana Sauce

OK - my husband is super sweet. Let's just get that out of the way to begin with. I have been making this paleo-mayo-based everything-sauce for a few months now, and we're both big fans. He loves it so much that he's affectionately named it "Diana Sauce". When there's a big batch of Diana Sauce in the fridge, times are good. When we've run out (and I haven't gotten around to making up a new batch), it makes for a pretty sad Kevin. I try to make a point of whipping up a batch at least once a week - we eat it with fresh chopped veggies, with meatballs, with chicken, and it makes a dang good salad dressing, too. I even chopped up a honeycrisp apple and dipped it this stuff, and it was a winning combination. Chop up some tomatoes and cucumbers and dress them with a spoonful of this stuff. You can't go wrong, I promise. 

The base of this sauce is a staple - Paleo mayonnaise. I use Melissa Joulwan's recipe for paleo mayo, and it's never steered me wrong yet. A couple things: 

1) Melissa will tell you that you have to drizzle the olive oil in slowly. She is right. Listen to her. If you get lazy and dump it in, it either won't work, or won't work out as well as you want it to. Trust. 

2) Let those eggs come to room temperature before you get going. I promise this is for the best. I just crack my eggs into my food processor and set the oven timer for 45 minutes for good measure. 

3) Use light olive oil, and use my super-secret-awesome tip for drizzling that oil. If you're anything like me, you'll get frustrated trying to drizzle olive oil from your weird measuring cups that insist on not providing an even stream. Go into the deep recesses of your kitchen drawer and bust out your turkey baster. Odds are, like me, you use it like once a year at best. It's been reborn as an olive-oil-mayo assistant! Use that to do a nice teeny tiny stream of olive oil into your mayo. 

For this recipe, you'll want to double Melissa's mayo recipe. That's the mayo up there. It looks even more beautiful and creamy in person. Resist the urge to stop at this point and chop up a cucumber and eat the whole bowl by itself.

Keep that mayo in your food processor/blender, and add in the following ingredients: 

1 tsp hot sauce (I like Tapatio)

1 tsp chopped chives

1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/3 tsp cayenne pepper

3 tbsp dijon mustard (or spicy brown mustard - so good!)

1 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 tbsp lemon juice

3 scallions (green onions) chopped into a few pieces

1 large bunch of parsley, with most of the stems removed

Toss all of it into the food processor/blender with the mayo, and blitz away!

Ooh, pretty....it tastes so creamy and zingy and fresh with all the parsley and spices. If you can handle the heat, toss in double the cayenne, and double the hot sauce. 

Now get to dippin'. Got some leftover chicken in the fridge? Chop it up and dip it in some Diana Sauce. While I was making my sauce, I had a big triple-batch of greek meatballs baking away in the oven, and for lunch, they snuggled up to some fresh cucumber slices and everything got a nice dollop of creamy Diana Sauce. I would be remiss if I didn't tell you how good some fresh-baked sweet potato fries are if you dip them in this stuff. So good.

Diana Sauce: 

Double batch of Melissa Joulwan's Paleo Mayo (yeilds about 3 cups of mayo)

1 tsp hot sauce (I like Tapatio)

1 tsp chopped chives

1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/3 tsp cayenne pepper

3 tbsp dijon mustard (or spicy brown mustard - so good!)

1 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 tbsp lemon juice

3 scallions (green onions) chopped into a few pieces

1 large bunch of parsley, with most of the stems removed

Once you've finished putting your Paleo Mayo together, leave it in the blender or food processor, and add in the hot sauce, chives, paprika, pepper, mustard, white wine vinegar, lemon juice, scallions, and parsley. Blend until well combined, and the veggies and scallions have been chopped up and mixed in well. 

Proceed to dip everything into the sauce. 

The expiration date for the sauce will be the same date as the expiration date on the eggs you used for the mayo. Odds are, though, it won't last that long!