Great Potato Salad

Two nights ago when making dinner, I cooked up a whole batch of potatoes.  The excess potatoes were tucked away in the fridge for potato salad.  I found this recipe a couple of years ago and now it's the only way I make potato salad.  It's a hit at potluck dinners and I always get asked for the recipe.

Today I'm going to a retirement tea for our Island's much-loved teacher.  There won't be time to make dinner when I get home, so a cold meal will be just the ticket.  Along with cold meat and a bean salad (the recipe for which came from a dear friend) we'll be having potato salad.  I always seem to mix it up a bit and tonight's recipe added chopped up green onions to the larger-than-nugget potatoes.  If you haven't got nugget potatoes, make sure the potatoes are of the waxy variety and cut them into bite-sized pieces.

Nugget Potato Salad with Grainy Dijon Mustard

2 lb nugget potatoes, quartered
2 large hard-boiled eggs, chopped
1 celery rib finely chopped
2 Tbsp chopped fresh chives
2/3 cup mayonnaise
2 Tbsp white wine vinegar
2 Tbsp grainy Dijon mustard
salt and freshly cracked pepper to taste

Scrub the potatoes well but do not peel.  Cut them into quarters, cover with cold water and boil until just tender.  Drain well and place in a bowl.

Mix in remaining ingredients.  Cool salad to room temperature.  Cover and chill well before servings.

Other herb options - dill, tarragon.

First Homegrown Salad of 2014

Okay - I cheated a bit.  The red pepper and cherry tomatoes were bought. But the lettuce, arugula and green onion all came from the garden this morning.

The dressing is a very easy ranch dressing and we like it so much it's what we use all the time now.  The chives and garlic are from our garden.

Ranch Dressing

1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 garlic clove, pressed
chives and other dried herbs to taste

Put all ingredients in a jar and shake up.  I refrigerate it for a couple of hours so the flavours blend.  Keeps for 3 days although it rarely lasts more than a day or two.  Make it 2 parts buttermilk, 1 part mayonnaise and add garlic and herbs - so easy to remember!

See How They Grow!

With virtually every nook and cranny planted, gardening becomes plucking out any weeds and watching things grow.  If you click on the pictures, you'll get a better view of how things actually look.

The Three Sisters garden is charging along nicely.  The corn and beans are getting so tall that the Remay cloth soon won't fit.  We have one week left of cooler temperatures and I'll try to keep it on for a few more days, but hopefully the cover won't be needed after that.

The difference between the little corn left out in the cold and the rest of the corn plants is still very obvious.  I'm sure shorty will catch up, but he'll probably take longer to set cobs.  Remay does make a difference.

The snow peas are charging up their fence and the lettuces between the zags are doing well - actually getting away on me!  I moved 3 carrot pots into the space left when the radishes finished.  My first planting of carrot pots are just about ready to be pulled.

And as for the tomatoes, I'll have to start setting up the tomato frame soon.  Even little Beth's Big Fat Tomato (bottom right) is doing well.  I'll be sure to save seed from this one so I can get an earlier start next year.

The bees are busy in the chives and at first I thought I'd actually seen domestic honeybees, but on closer inspection, I don't think they are.  It's been a while since I've seen domestic bees.

Too bad the dullish day doesn't do justice to the pond.  It's looking quite spectacular right now with a vibrant mix of colors and textures.  The idea to build the pond there was the brain child of our dear friend, Beth - of the BBFT Beth.  It was a terrific idea!  The vegetable garden is just above the pond to the right.

We spent most of the day pouring concrete for a new raised bed.  The next post will document our progress.

Leek and Potato Soup

Now that I'm planning a Three Sisters Garden, I have to get the leeks out of one of the beds.  The easiest way to use leeks is to make leek and potato soup, which also happens to be one of my favorites.  My recipe is pretty simple:  equal weights of leeks and potatoes, soup stock and some seasoning.

I read somewhere on the Internet about adding a bouquet garni and using a couple of blades from the leeks as the container, so I decided to give it a try.  I made my bouquet garni with a couple of sprigs of thyme, a bay leaf, some peppercorns and 2 leek leaves.  (Note to self:  get a bay tree!)

Ingredients for a bouquet garni

It was a bit fiddly putting the bouquet garni together, but with a little help from my husband, I finally mastered it.  Next was preparing the leeks.  Since leeks are grown in a trench which is gradually filled up to get long white portions, they tend to get soil trapped in the layers.  I slice my leeks down their length and rinse them out, then chop them into sections.  A proper leek and potato soup uses only the white portions of the leek, but I'm not a purist so I cheat a bit.

Cleaned leeks and the bouquet garni

The chopped leeks are now sauteed for about 5 minutes in butter until they are wilted.

Sautee the leeks until wilted

Then place the leeks, peeled and quartered potatoes and the bouquet garni in the pot of soup stock.  I use enough soup stock to cover the ingredients.  You can always add more to a soup that's too thick.  It's harder to make a thin soup thicker!

Simmering soup

Bring the soup to a boil and then simmer until the potatoes are cooked through.  Remove the bouquet garni and puree until smooth.  A couple of the peppercorns escaped, but since they floated, it was an easy matter to remove them.  Finally, reheat the soup, season with salt and pepper to taste and serve.

The finished product

I served the finished soup with a dollop of sour cream and chopped chives.  Sometimes I add plain yogurt instead of the sour cream.  It's also fine without the dairy addition.  You can garnish with fresh chopped parsley as well.  A delicious soup that's easy and inexpensive to make!