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Well this has been an interesting week. I left work early sick on Monday. I worked all day on Tuesday and totally overdid it which led to my taking Wednesday off to go to the doctor and then rest. I have a sinus infection by the way. AG insisted she needed to see her doctor too and by Wednesday night I agreed. I went to work Thursday morning for about an hour and then left to take her to the doctor. She has an ear infection and angry sinuses due to allergies. It's a rough time of year for us with the weather changing so abruptly. But she's in good spirits and seems to be doing much better today. She even slept good with no coughing last night thanks to some excellent medicines and essential oils that I rubbed her down with, diffused, and put on her stuffed animals and pillow. It seemed excessive but whatever works to help my baby get the rest she needs I will do.
All that being said, I think you'll understand why I needed an easy dinner last night. We had pork chops (DIY Shake 'n Bake), squash with onions, and purple potato salad.
A few years ago I made a potato salad that hubby deemed the BEST potato salad he'd ever eaten and insisted I write down what I did. It was so simple so I agreed and now feels like a good time to explain why I don't do a lot of food posts. I'm the kind of person who cooks with no recipe or when I do use a recipe it's just as a guideline and I tend not to measure things unless I'm baking. Cooking is an art, baking is a science. Both appeal to me for different reasons. I only recently realized that my ability to know how ingredients will taste together by smell is a gift. I just thought everyone did that.
Cooking for my family is such a joy but my time is limited so I try and keep things simple. I'm going to make an effort to pay attention to quantities when I cook so I can share my favorite go-to meals with y'all. Let's start with potato salad. This time it was fancy because I found these cool little purple potatoes at "Plubix" (as AG says.)
As I mentioned, I wrote this recipe years ago. Thankfully my beloved family cookbook was up high on a shelf during the flood so it was perfectly fine. This recipe was hanging on the fridge with several others until shortly before the flood when I pulled them down and tucked the best ones into that notebook. The fridge flipped over so I'm very thankful I did that. Anyway, here's the recipe in all of its handwritten glory.
I did tweak it a bit because I try and avoid posting my family members' real names or AGs current face on here. I'm afraid of internet creepers.
Can you see how dirty that paper is? I have a theory that the dirtier the recipe, the better it is. This is totally true if you flip through my family cookbook. The persimmon bread recipe is barely legible. But that's one for another day.
I first made this with baking/russet potatoes because it's what I had on hand. This time I used the whole bag of the purple potatoes because it really wasn't much. I just doubled the amount of dressing I mixed up. Probably a cup of mayo, a big squeeze of mustard, a squeeze of lemon juice and salt and pepper. (I told you I don't measure) I put those in a big bowl and mix them up with a whisk and just add more of those ingredients to taste as needed. I want it a little strong because it's going to be spread pretty thin.
While the potatoes are boiling (in salted water) I mix that dressing up and chop a bell pepper and the green onion. These potatoes took about 20-30 minutes to cook fully. I add my egg (2 this time) into the boiling water with the potatoes for the last 10 minutes or so.
I figure the boiling water kills any nasty egg shell bacteria and I don't see the need to boil another pot of water when I've already got one in use. I've been doing this for years and I've never had a problem with it.
I don't have any other pictures of the process because it got messy. I drained and rinsed the potatoes and eggs with cool water and poured them out onto my cutting board. I let them cool a few minutes then quartered the potatoes. I noticed quickly that the skins were papery and falling off so I couldn't just leave them. I would quarter 5 or so at a time and then remove the skins and throw them in the big bowl with the dressing and other ingredients. These little purple potatoes are cute but they were sticky like glue when I would cut them while warm. That didn't last long and thankfully the texture of them in the potato salad was just like russets except these held their shape better. Hubby actually requested I mash them some next time to make it creamier and more "potatoey". I think he's absolutely right and I will. I saved the eggs for last so they could cool extra. After I peeled them, AG came and helped me cut them. I gave her a little kid butter knife and she did great! She even tossed them in and helped me stir. She insisted on using her own special little spoon. Here's our finished product, complete with AGs little spoon.
Looks weird right? That's what we thought too but it tastes just like normal potato salad. Those purple potatoes are packed with antioxidants just like other deep blue produce which makes them a big win in my book. I'm going to try making them mashed next time. With their texture so similar to a russet I think they'll work great.
Have you ever used purple potatoes? Does your local grocery store carry them? Yesterday was my first time seeing them outside of a cooking show so when I saw they were buy one get one free, I couldn't resist.
