Showing posts with label potato salad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label potato salad. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

purple potato salad



  • fresh purple potatoes, scrubbed and sliced in half
  • Dijon mustard
  • Champagne vinegar
  • honey

In salted boiling water, cook potatoes for 10-15 minutes until fork tender. Combine equal parts honey, vinegar and mustard; adjust according to taste. Pour dressing over potatoes and serve either warm or cold. I was lucky enough to have a close to empty squeeze jar of Dijon in the fridge so I used it to mix the dressing and I was able to achieve the cool drizzle effect in the photo.

The dish: I usually try to avoid Frankenfood because square watermelons and grape flavored apples just don't do it for me. I'm not sure how altered purple potatoes are, but our farm friends had some and I just had to try them. They taste just like a regular potato, but carry some of the health benefits associated with other purple foods. The most abundant of the good stuff are flavonoids, antioxidant compounds that among other things, might help keep cancer at bay. There's been a lot of research into the biological environment cancer cells live in and what we can do through diet to alter it. In other words, if Madame Cancer decides to take up with us, we don't have to be good hosts. Cancer is a tricky disease that's good at sending out signals to our bodies to divert resources like food and energy toward its own benefit. Everything we eat or drink changes the composition of our blood, and various nutrients in food can alter it in such a way that it blocks some of cancer's communications. Various flavonoids and antioxidants can actually fight cancer by doing things like controlling blood sugar to reducing inflammation. In addition to tasting great, this salad has tons of cancer fighting properties and nutrients our bodies can put to use. Not to mention, the distinctive purple and yellow coloring looks like the velvet pouch that Crown Royal comes in, and only good things come out of that magical bag.

Monday, March 2, 2009

German potato salad


  • 5 pounds red potatoes
  • 1/2 cup cider vinegar
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • fresh parsley, chopped fine
  • dried mustard
  • kosher salt
  • 5 strips bacon, cooked and chopped
  • 1 large white onion, diced

Peel potatoes about 80% (I like to leave some skin on, but not too much) and cut into similar bite sized pieces. In bottom of crock pot whisk together vinegar and sugar with a generous shake of dried mustard. Add potatoes, bacon and onion to pot, stir and season with salt. Cook on high for two hours, then cook on low for 8-10 hours. Add parsley in last 20 minutes of cooking. Serve warm.

The dish: Keeping with the "you can cook anything in a crock pot" theme comes this warm potato salad. This was cooked in my crock pot which is about 5 years old. Depending on the age of yours you may need to adjust cooking times slightly. This dish is best done the first time while you're home and can keep an eye on things, making sure the potatoes cook. As you can see in the picture I got cocky and went out for the afternoon and came home to slightly mashed potato salad, no big deal though. I advise against using any slow cooker that's not a real Rival Crock Pot, many cheaper knock offs cook unevenly and don't seal as nicely. There are a few higher end cookers from companies like Kitchen Aid, but I can't see dropping $100 on something that's an imitation of the $40 namesake.