Perfect Potato Salad

How many of you have tried to make your own potato salad? I love potato salad, but I am so picky it's hard to order some and know how it will turn out. Some are dry and tasteless and others are drown in cheese and sour cream. I think I have finally found a recipe combination that works for me, except for one odd quality - it's served warm.

When I think of potato salad I think of BBQ side dishes and eating outside in the summer, but honestly this recipe only works so well because it is served warm. You do have a lot of flexibility in what you can include in potato salads. I don't like many raw ingredients - red onions have an after taste that take days to fade. And hard celery bites in my potato salad is such a turn off. But there are also ways to add some nutrition to this party side that can pretty much go unnoticed by those anti-vegetable family members of yours.

Potato Salad

2 lb. red potatoes

1.5 tbsp cider vinegar

2 eggs

1/4 c. mayo e.g. Kraft's olive oil

1/4 tsp dijon mustard

1/4 tsp celery seed

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

2 stalks celery, chopped

1/2 red pepper, diced

1-2 carrots, shredded

1/2 yellow onion, diced

2 tbsp dill pickle relish

paprika, for serving

fresh parsley, for serving

You should definitely use red potatoes for this recipe. Someone did a test to see which potatoes were most absorbing and would take on the most flavors for potatoes salad, and red potatoes won hands down. I know they are cheap but don't use russet potatoes - it will not taste the same. Boil the potatoes for 20-25 minutes or until able to easily pierce with a knife. Let potatoes cool. Cut the potato in half long-ways and then into thirds, or approximately bite-sized pieces. Stir in vinegar and set aside.

While potatoes are boiling, put two eggs into a shallow pot and cover with water. Set stove to high until water boils. Once boiling, cover pot and turn off stove - do not remove pot from heat. Time for 13 minutes. This is Martha's full-proof hardboil egg instructions and you will never have an overcooked egg. Once cool enough to handle, shell eggs and chop.

Mix your mayo and mustard together. Add seasonings. Add relish. Set aside.

In a frying pan add celery, onion, red pepper and carrot. Sauté until celery starts to become soft and vegetables are slightly brown. Add salt and pepper to vegetables.

First mix the warm potatoes and vegetables. Start with half your mayo mix and stir into potatoes. The heat of the vegetables will "melt" the mayo slightly and you will better be able to tell how much more you need. Add egg last. Top salad with fresh, chopped parsley and paprika. Serve immediately.

Some other tips: I like sautéed sweet onion in my salad, but you can also use sliced green onions since it is not so powerful. I am a big fan of dill relish but other recipes called for sliced cornichons if you prefer that taste to dill. Also, I never peel my potatoes, even for masked potatoes. As long as you clean the potatoes you are actually getting more nutrition from the skins. But if you dislike your potato skins remove them once they have boiled and are cool enough to handle.

Real Mac-n-Cheese

I am revived! I was getting a little discontent with my food blog lately because I wasn't making the best-tasting vegetarian recipes or finding really unique ideas. But after a girls weekend and a replay of "Julie and Julia" I have revived my foodie spirit.

Another revelation I had this weekend was about mac-n-cheese. You may have noticed some of the organic and all-natural substitutes for Kraft's dinner staple, but I assure you NONE are as satisfying or palatable as the original "blue box". However, the delicious side dish suffers from being over-processed. A good solution is to make your own, you might say, but I have had more than a few bad experiences making gourmet mac-n-cheese recipes and had all but given up on my own creation.

However, sometimes it's good to go back to the basics: southern comfort. I have a co-worker who is an admitted non-cook: chopping vegetables is overbearing for her. But she does have some pot luck staples that she makes very well. One being macaroni and cheese. This is admittedly not the healthy choice I try to promote in my recipes, but it is vegetarian and it is a great way to get rid of your mac-n-cheese fix minus the processed go-to item.

Mac-N-Cheese ala Wilson

1 can Carnation evaporated milk, reduced fat

1 tbsp flour

4 eggs, preferably organic or cage-free

1 cup milk, at least 2% and organic

1 tbsp sugar

dry seasonings: garlic powder, cyanne pepper, and salt and black pepper

two cups each (16 oz):

shredded sharp cheddar e.g. Cracker Barrell

cubed velveta

shredded mild cheddar e.g. Kraft

1 lb. macaroni

Boil macaroni according to package instructions. Preheat oven for 375 degrees. Whisk evaporated milk, flour and eggs together. Add milk, sugar and seasonings. In a two (2) quarter casserole dish layer macaroni and cheeses. Keep cheeses separated so you know you are using an even amount of each. You should have about three layers depending on the depth of your dish. Pour egg mixture over the pasta. Make sure you don't overfill the dish. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until eggs are set.

This is a big hit with my husband's friends when they visit for the weekend. It is very boy-friendly food. I do my best to get them to eat a side of broccoli, which tends to go well with mac-n-cheese.

Chocolate Mexican Soycream

I just discovered a delicious and reduced-guilt ice cream treat. Trader Joes sells Soy Dream (ice cream made from soy milk) in a variety of flavors. I love the cherry with chocolate chips but the fat content was still too high (7g fat per serving). But when I looked at the chocolate soycream I was floored by the reduced fat - just 3g for a 1/2 cup serving!

Ice cream is very difficult to exude discipline because the serving size is so small. One half cup is equivalent to about two golf balls. I serve all my ice cream in small ramekins to keep myself in check. And with only 3g fat per serving I can allow myself more yummy toppings.

Another fabulous TJ's product that allows me reduced guilt sundaes is Organic Midnight Moo Chocolate Syrup. I am not a big fan of fat free chocolate because it normally tastes like kaka, but some how TJ's has come up with a fat-free recipe that is actually appetizing. I use the syrup for homemade mochas, milk shakes and ice cream topping.

Another thing I love about Trader Joe's is the massive bags of nuts you can get for relatively cheap. At regular grocery stores I have to buy 1/2 cup or 2 cup, which are normally used in one setting. However, TJ's offers pounds of nuts in a variety of options e.g. roasted, dry, salted, reduced salt, etc. I use them for my granola, desserts, meal toppings and even as snacks. And per pound you are getting a much better deal with TJ's than other grocery stores. Although nuts are naturally rich in protein they do carry a lot of unsaturated fat so be sparing.

Chocolate Mexican Soycream Dessert

1/2 cup chocolate Soy Dream

Organic Midnight Moo Chocolate Syrup

1 tbsp dry hazelnuts, slightly crushed

1 tbsp sweetened coconut

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Other Mexican ice cream combinations include coffee or dulce de leche ice cream and peanuts or nut brittle.

CSA Dinner Frittata

Oh yum! One of the best things about being a cook is when you can take leftovers or raw ingredients and make a world-win creation. We are coming off a four-day holiday and are about to leave for our week vacation, so I was intent on making dinner with only what we had. When I came home to find that my thawed shrimp had gone bad I was already out of ideas.

However, my last CSA pick-up was a new batch of vegetables including heirloom tomatoes, fingerling potatoes and leeks. And of course kale. So after a few searches on recipe search lists I came up with a pretty delicious frittata that is hearty enough for dinner, but yummy enough to eat any meal of the day.

CSA Dinner Frittata

1-1.5 lb fingerling potatoes, cleaned and cut to one inch pieces

2 heirloom tomatoes (mr. stripey, german queens or similar size), chopped

1 pound kale (about three handfuls), chopped

1-2 bullion cubs, beef or vegetable

1 tbsp olive oil

3 baby leeks or green onions, sliced

garlic, minced

crushed red pepper

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

6 eggs

1/4 -1/3 c. grated smoked Gouda or other smoky cheese

coarse salt and pepper

1/4 c. grated Parmesan

hot sauce, such as Louisianna

Set a pot of water to boil. Cut potatoes half longways and then into thirds, eliminating rough or discolored pieces. I never peal my potatoes unless they are pretty old - the skin is very nutritious. Boil potatoes 10-15 minutes or until slightly soft - they should not be 'mashed potato' soft.

Meanwhile sauté olive oil with garlic and leek/onion over medium heat. My CSA leeks are scallion-sized and I think the taste is more conducive to this recipe, but I have never found leeks that petite in grocery stores so use what you can find. Once the garlic is brown add crushed red pepper. I use more than most but 0.5 tsp should be enough heat for anyone. I highly recommend using heirloom tomatoes because the 'meat' of the tomato is more savory and there is less need to seed the tomato. When chopping your tomato avoid white and hard parts.

When potatoes are done, fish them out with a slotted spoon and add them to the skillet with the tomatoes and lemon juice and cover. Add the bullion cubes (I added two for more flavor but it depend on how much water you still have in your pot) to boiling water. Once cubes are dissolved, add chopped kale. You should have one part potato, one part tomato and two parts kale. Boil kale about 3-4 minutes or until tender. Stir potato mix occasionally to avoid sticking.

Preheat oven 350 degrees. In a large bowl mix potato mixture and kale. Add coarse salt and pepper. Let mixture cool. In a smaller bowl beat smoky cheese, eggs and coarse salt and pepper. In a greased deep dish pie pan spoon vegetables until evenly distributed. I actually had a lot of leftover vegies but there is an incentive to make another frittata. Pour egg mixture over the vegetables and slightly blend together. Top frittata with parm cheese.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until egg is set. I broiled the frittata for about 4 minutes to get a good brown on top. Let cool slightly before serving. Serve with hot sauce. My sister sent me an African care package with a hot sauce that is so flavorful and spicy. It is a new favorite in my house, but a decent domestic alternative is Louisiana. I am not a Tabasco fan but it will suffice.

It took a lot of will power not to eat the whole thing last night - it was so good. I also used the leftovers for breakfast so this is an all around meal. I was also able to use so many leftovers. I tagged this recipe cheap because I literally didn't have to buy anything. The used leftover cheese, took out the rest of my eggs and my vegetables from my CSA. This meal is also a high score on the vegetable list as well.

Patriotic (and low-fat) Cheesecake

Happy 4th of July! Holidays are a great time for families and showing off your culinary skills. I am a huge meal planner around holidays, and it also gives me an extra "cheat day" on my farm food diet.

Cheesecake is one of the most dreaded desserts to avoid when trying to cut weight. Regular cheesecake can pack as much as 18g of fat and 40% of your daily saturated fat. BUT IT'S SO GOOD! I was able to find and combine two cheesecake recipes that use ricotta cheese and low-fat cream cheese to cut a lot of the cheese fat out of this irresistible dessert. So you can double your guilty day for a holiday dessert that is low-fat, festive and very tasty.

I combined Martha Stewart's Red, White and Blueberry Cheesecake with Cooking Light's Ricotta Cheesecake. Either recipe is excellent on it's own, but my version tries to keep more of the texture of cheesecake without including all the cream cheese calories.

I first made this dessert for my husband for being sweet and going out of his way to help me. I am not a huge cheesecake fan, but this combination is excellent. It was one of the few times we finished a dessert before throwing it out. There is a little bit of room to play with the proportions, so be sure and check the links to the recipes if you want more or less firmness, fat or ricotta.

Patriotic Cheesecake:

Crust:

6-8 graham crackers (one pack)
1/3 cup raw almonds (optional)

1/4 cup sugar (optional)
4 tbsp butter, melted

Filling:

1/2 cup organic sugar

12 oz (1.5 bars) reduced-fat cream cheese
1/2 pint (8 oz) low-fat ricotta cheese
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
salt, pinch
1 tsp fresh lemon zest

Topping:

1/2 cup organic sugar

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

4 plums, pitted and cubed

1 pint blueberries

Do not use store-bought graham crust - the cheesecake will fall apart. Graham cracker crust is incredibly simple to make if you have a food processor. If you have heart-healthy raw almonds, only use 6 grahams and crush together in processor. If you don't have almonds, use the whole pack of grahams. All graham crust calls for 1/4 cup sugar. I have always forgotten to add it and the crust is still divine. So don't add the sugar unless you think it needs it. I know 4 tbsp butter is a bit much for a low-fat recipe, but you really need the moisture to hold the crust together. Pour the butter into the processor while it is crushing the grahams. Pack the buttery crumbs into a 9 inch pie dish. Use a greased spatula to spread the crumbs evenly. Bake the crust for 8 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

A few tips here: This is obviously a lower-fat dessert and not exactly screaming healthy, but I try where I can to make this less bad-for-me. I have become hung up on organic sugar lately. I do like Sugar in the Raw, but it doesn't always do best in baking. It is GREAT in cookies, but not other baked goods, so stick with fine, organic sugar. The price is not much different esp since it takes me a while to go through a 5lb bag of sugar. Also, when zesting your lemon, be sure to save a tablespoon of the juice for the topping. It's best to roll the lemon on the counter and press your palm into the lemon to break up the juices before cutting it.

Be sure to clean and dry your food processor completely before moving onto the filling. Make sure your cream cheese and ricotta are at room temperature, which will help with blending. Blend together cheeses and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla, zest and salt. You might have a fancy food processor, but I do not (got it from Visa reward points), so be sure and scrape the bottom of the bowl with a spatula to make sure all the cream cheese isn't caked on the bottom. Once mixture is well blended, pour the batter into the cooled pie dish. Place pie on a cookie sheet and bake for 30-35 minutes. Cool completely.

As cake cools, combine plums, 1/2 cup sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan. Heat on medium until at a rapid simmer. Reduce heat to simmer and stir until fruit starts to turn to jam. Remove from heat and stir in blueberries. Once cake is cool, spread fruit mixture over cake and refrigerate at least two hours.

Black-eyed Pea Spinach Pie

Even after some research I could not find where this recipe originated from. But it has been so modified that it is a true Ross recipe. I do not like black-eyed peas. I don't much like any peas, but my husband does. And this recipe is my one annual promise of peas on New Year's Day. It is a great dish for pot-lucks or holiday meals too.

Black-eyed Pea Spinach Pie

2 cans black-eyed peas, preferably organic

1 bag spinach

2 pie crust shells, such as Pillsbury

5 oz pepper-jack cheese, shredded

1 egg, beaten

1 white onion, diced

garlic

cilantro

Preheat oven 350 degrees. In a 9 inch pie plate fit one pie crust. Stab with a fork and bake for 8 minutes and let cool. Saute onion and garlic in 1 tsp oil. Add spinach and stir until wilted. Remove from heat. Stir in cheese, egg, cilantro, salt/pepper and peas. Fill the pie dish and top with the second pie crust. Cut slits in the top layer to vent. Bake 45 minutes. Cool before cutting.

Mama added three links of chicken sausage to the frying pan before mixing in the spinach. The sausage makes this dish a meal in itself, but it works better as a vegetarian side dish.

Super-Satisfying Vegetarian Breakfast Sandwich

Subway's new low-fat breakfast sandwiches had me inspired to try to use them toward my weight-loss goals. I wanted to take a picture of the sandwich I made, but by the time I thought to post this on the blog, our meal was gone.

I was again blown away by how much I liked this meal. I was most skeptical because this is not a revised recipe but something I put together off the cuff. This breakfast sandwich is very filling, all vegetarian but probably not the healthiest of my breakfast recipes. To reduce fat even more, cut back on cheese and mayo portions.

Vegetarian Breakfast Sandwich

2 whole wheat english muffins

3 eggs (cage free or organic)

1 handful of spinach

4 green onions, whites only

1/3 cup shredded white cheese

1 tomato, thinly sliced

2 tbsp mayonnaise

When choosing eggs, I had to consult my husband on this one. I have no idea if free range, cage free, vegetarian fed, etc are any better than the rest. I know I should always buy organic but you can get a dozen white eggs for $1.50 v. organic eggs, which are typically smaller, for $4.99. So I normally buy in the middle range. My husband used to work on a chicken farm and he said vegetarian chickens are a myth. Even if they are only fed vegetarian, chickens like animal product. Free range means they are able to get around but cage-free means they have access to outside. Short of organic, but the most humane-raised chickens are free range.

Sauté sliced green onions with spinach in small frying pan. Add a tbsp water to help wilt the spinach. Remove from heat and coarsely chop. Whisk eggs, add spinach and cheese and salt and pepper. I used a mixed bag of swiss and Gouda, which made the sandwich very smoky and savory. But any white cheese is efficient. Try to stick to reduced-fat cheeses but not fat free.

Using a small frying pan, add egg mixture. My smallest frying pan is between 6 and 8 inches and perfect for omelets. When the edges start to set, pull the egg away from the pan and tilt the pan toward the opening to let the raw egg seep underneath. Fold the egg over to make a half moon and squeeze any excess. Continue to fold over until all egg is cooked and you have an omelet. Remove from heat.

Toast English muffins. Beware when buying English muffins and look at the ingredients. Since the new craze is "whole wheat" products are now being colored with molasses to look like wheat. Make sure that the ingredients include WHOLE grain or that it is advertised as 100% whole wheat. It is more crusty but lightly toasted really brings out the flavor.

Spread one side of the muffin with mayonnaise. We have had this conversation before about what mayo is best. I hate Miracle Whip but Dukes real mayonnaise is not worth the calories. I am most dedicated to Kraft Mayo with olive oil. It is reduced-fat but has all the flavor of real mayo. Smart Start also has a good brand of mayo.

Top muffin with tomato and cut omelet to fit muffin. I had a little more than two muffin-sized omelets, but we were happy to finish the rest of it 'naked'. For a complete breakfast, serve with a side of fresh fruit (we had pineapple) or chicken sausage.

To reserect this sandwich for during the work week, freeze as soon as the sandwich is at room temperature. Only freeze omelet with the English muffin, and leave off tomato and mayo. Once at work, wrap sandwich in a paper towel and defrost for 60 seconds. The heat on high for 60 seconds. Add mayo and tomato after heated. Only reserect within a between 1-3 days or the sandwich will taste bland.