Cobb Salad and a new Green Goddess Dressing

     Yesterday my friend Penny brought me some Shiso.  Also known as Perilla, Shiso is a leafy herb.  There are two varieties:  green and red.  Penny was growing the red kind.  It's more of a purple color and has broad leaves.  Penny had done some research and knew that for the most part, Shiso is used in Asian cooking.  I researched a few recipes and saw a sidenote that caught my eye:  If you don't have Shiso around, you can substitute Tarragon. 
     When I was on my walk by the river today I got to thinking about what I wanted to make for dinner.  It was hot today; who wants to cook when it's hot?  I thought a big cobb salad would be good...I could grill shrimp to go with it.  More importantly, I could make Green Goddess dressing to go with the salad, and I could use Shiso in it!
     I got home tonight and got started with dinner:  First I started thawing the shrimp.  I like the raw e-z peel shrimp that you can get in the frozen foods section.  They are almost always on sale!  I also put some eggs on to boil.  While all that was happening, I started the dressing:

I took liberties with the Green Goddess dressing recipe.  It didn't call for garlic or lemon grass.  Still, I was using the Shiso, which is more of an Asian ingredient, so I threw in a few more.  I started with:  1 cup of mayo/sour cream (mostly mayo), 1/4 cup of parsley, several (3-4) shiso leaves (it's the purple stuff on the right), about 2 tsp chives, and 1 tsp lemon grass puree.  I also added 1 clove of garlic.  I pureed all this in the food processor.  From there I just added parsley and shiso until the flavor was strong enough for my tastes.  I also added about 1/2 tsp black pepper.  Then, to thin the dressing out a little, I added 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar (add more if you want) and about 1/4-1/2 cup milk.  Start with 1/4 cup and add until it's the consistency you want. 

Here's my finished product.  Creamy, cool, and herby.  I put this in a container in the fridge while I readied everything else (that I forgot to take pictures of during the process).  The wind was too gusty for me to light the grill, so I broiled the shrimp with olive and sesame oil (like 1 tsp sesame oil) for about 5 minutes or until opaque. 

Here's my beautiful salad sans dressing.  I knew it wouldn't look as pretty once I added that!  From top to bottom:  a mix of spinach and red leaf lettuce, blue cheese, sugar snap peas/carrots/tomatoes/vidalia onion, boiled egg, and shrimp.  It was a great dinner on a hot, windy night.  Experiment and make your own Green Goddess dressing tonight!