Tag: food

Call Me Old Fashion (Devon’s Mom’s Potato Salad)

Call Me Old Fashion (Devon’s Mom’s Potato Salad)

Ninety degree weather welcomed us home from Nashville yesterday.  Apparently Mother Nature is giving us one last summer hurrah and it’s a doozy.  Perfect time to fire up the grill and send summer off with some classics-dogs, burgers, corn on the cob and POTATO SALAD.  Ok, all I really want is the potato salad.  The rest is just window dressing and for your benefit.  I LOVE potato salad.

On our Houston trip our meal at Lucille’s Soul Food included potato salad.  The potato salad was vinegar based and not made with mayonnaise.  Yes, it was tasty, but for me, a good old fashion classic potato salad is made with GOBS and GOBS of mayonnaise.  When I was a kid my mom would buy the little plastic tubs of potato salad at the grocery store.  Sweet and tangy, flecks of red and green from the pimento and relish all held together with Miracle Whip aka as sweet mayo…  Yep, fond memories for me.  I also love the Japanese version of potato salad which omits pickles, has diced carrots, cucumbers, ham and corn instead and is held together by Kewpie Mayonnaise.  So good.  It’s the first thing I attack in a Bento Box.

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For the longest time I was content with squelching my potato salad cravings by having it as a side with a deli sandwich.  Never thought of actually making my own until one day my co-worker Devon brought her Mom’s Potato salad to a potluck. I had flashbacks of those long ago summertime picnics as I shamelessly stuffed my face.  Devon, “I NEED your Mom’s potato salad recipe.”  Lucky for me she said yes.

What’s in it?  White rose potatoes, plenty of mayonnaise, hard boiled eggs, red onions, sweet gherkins, ballpark mustard (no fancy schmancy mustard needed), celery seed, Beau Monde seasoning and salt & pepper .  Over the years I have tweaked the recipe, but, at its core, it is still a  classic potato salad.  I have substituted sour cream for a portion of the mayo, added diced celery for extra crunch or diced bell peppers for sweetness and color.  If Wes makes it he will add a dollop of sweet relish for good measure.

The key is to boil your potatoes until they are really soft but not falling apart.  When you mix it together you want some of the potatoes to stay in little chunks and some to breakdown.

If you like old fashion potato salad..look no further..this is potato salad heaven.

Call Me Old Fashion…Devon’s Potato Salad

  • 7 medium white potatoes (boiled until very soft, cooled and peeled, diced)
  • 3 hard boiled eggs (peeled and mashed)
  • 1/2 medium red onion (diced)
  • 3 sweet gherkins (diced)
  • 1 tsp celery seed
  • a couple of dashes of Beau Monde seasoning
  • ~1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
  • 1 tsp ball park mustard
  • juice from the gherkins to moisten
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • milk to moisten as needed
  • Riffs:
  • 1 stalk of celery (diced)
  • 1/2 cup sour cream to replace equal amount of mayo
  • 1/2 cup diced red or green bell pepper
  • dollop of sweet relish to finish

How to boil potatoes

  • Devon’s mom boils the potatoes whole therefore so do I. But you can cut them up and boil them which would significantly reduce cooking time.
  • Place potatoes in a large pot and cover with water (an inch above potatoes)
  • Add 1/2-1 teaspoon salt
  • Bring to a boil over medium high heat. Once it boils turn heat down to keep the water at a gently simmer.
  • Whole potatoes will take approximately 40 minutes to cook. Test by piercing the potato with a knife or fork. It should be tender enough that the knife meets with little resistance.
  • Drain and rinse under cool water. Transfer to a mixing bowl.
  1. You pretty much know the drill..go ahead and make it your own! Add corn or peas or try it with fancy mustard, its up to you! I have even added diced chicken or ham to the salad.
  2. Place potatoes in a large bowl add mayonnaise and mustard first and then everything else!
  3. Mix well but gently so you don’t break up the potatoes too much.
  4. Season, stir, taste and tweak as you want.
  5. Put your salad in the fridge to chill and to let the flavors come together.
  6. Garnish with parsley or chopped scallions before serving

Summer: Alfresco Meals & the Bacon Caper

Summer: Alfresco Meals & the Bacon Caper

I love alfresco dining and today was the perfect day to enjoy breakfast outside.  Banana blueberry pancakes made by my daughter, crispy bacon, a big bowl of fresh berries and mangoes (another reason to love summer), and yogurt with homemade granola. Perfect!  We set up outside in the garden, wait, forgot the coffee, back inside, grab the pot.  Back outside….WHAT? Sammy our dog, who has never, ever, ever eaten anything off the counter or table (a point of pride for us);  who will sit in a car surrounded by food including banana bread, egg rolls, fried chicken wings AND not touch any of it; HAS EATEN THE ENTIRE PLATE OF BACON, in a matter of seconds gobbled up 10 slices of bacon and licked the plate clean.  I’m still mad at him…..

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Well, we still have pancakes.  I will share the easiest way to cook perfect bacon despite not having a photo of said bacon, just the dog who ate the bacon.

Oven Cooked Bacon

Ingredients

  • 1 pound of thick cut bacon
  • Variations:
  • 1/4 to 1/3 cup brown sugar
  • 2-3 T maple syrup
  • 1/4 tsp. cayenne
  • 1.4 tsp. black pepper

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and set wire rack on top. Lay bacon slices on rack. Do not overlap slices. Place in oven and bake 15-20 minutes until desired doneness. The bacon cooks perfectly, lays flat and best of all you don't have to stand at the stove watching it fry! Clean up is relatively easy, especially if you line your pan with foil.

Variations:

  • For a sweet bacon, sprinkle bacon with brown sugar and bake as directed, spice it up by adding cayenne to brown sugar and sprinkling on bacon.
  • Brush with maple syrup , bake as directed.
My Favorite Scottish Shortbread

My Favorite Scottish Shortbread

I love baking cookies.  Every Christmas I bake an assortment of cookies for family and friends, a tradition I started years ago.  Last year I made bags of granola instead and realized just how much less stress I had by not baking 10 different kinds of cookies!  But (sigh),  I’ll go back to baking cookies, its a labor of love and I am a glutton for punishment.  There are the tried and true cookies I bake year after year; the few that show up from time to time and then, one or two new cookies each holiday season.

The Perfect Cookie

The cornerstone of my Holiday box of cookies is the traditional Scottish Shortbread.  The recipe, from the long-defunct Cuisine magazine, was the bonus to the story, My Father’s Shortbread.  The author recounts watching his father making shortbread every Christmas.  His father’s only tools were his hands.  I cheat a little and use a mixer to combine the flour into the kneaded butter but everyone should make shortbread completely by hand once.

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Shortbread is my absolute favorite cookie. It’s probably because I am a butter FREAK.  I love butter.  People ask, do you want a little toast with that butter?  Shortbread cookies are the closest you will get to just popping a little pat of moo-magic in your mouth.

The dough can be rolled and cut into traditional wedges or works beautifully as cutouts.  I have in my collection a couple of embossed rolling pins that can be used with shortbread.  Roll the dough to approximately 1/4 inch and then use your embossed pin to create the pattern on the cookie.  The dough is easy to work with and very forgiving.

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(left upper corner going clockwise) Nutmeg logs, World Peace cookies, pecan tartlets, mocha macadamia slices, jan hagels, thumbprints, crescents, peanut & bittersweet chocolate cookies, traditional shortbread, corn cookies

My Father’s Shortbread is my favorite, go-to shortbread cookie, but Bouchon’s Shortbread is a close second!

Adapted from My Father’s Shortbread by Sydney Edelson Cuisine Magazine Dec 1983

Traditional Scottish Shortbread

Butter in cookie form
Course cookies, Dessert
Cuisine European
Keyword Shortbread
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 pound cold lightly salted butter
  • 1 cup superfine sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 4 cups unbleached all purpose flour

Instructions

  • Work butter until soft but not melting.  Easiest thing to do is pound the butter with a rolling pin   Fold butter in half and smoosh it with pin (yes smoosh) until malleable but not warm.
  • Place butter in bowl of a stand mixer, add sugar and salt cream until combined, do not beat until fluffy as this will incorporate too much air into butter.
  • Add flour to butter mixture and mix on low until particles cling together.  Remove from bowl and knead gently until smooth and soft.  Pat or roll into a rectangle about 3/8" thick.  Mark off pieces 1" x 2-1/2", prick with fork and chill for 1 hour.
  • Cut apart and place on cold baking sheet 1/2" apart.
  • Preheat oven to 325 degrees, place shortbread in oven and immediately turn temperature down to 275 degrees.  Bake for 30 minutes, rotate pan and leave for additional 10-15 minutes.
  • Cookies are done when bottoms are golden brown and sand color on top.  You can  use cookie cutters if you wish. Shortbread retain their shape well.

Notes

Remember to turn your oven down to 275 when you put the cookies in the oven!!!