Easy Potato Salad

by Lois Breneman, © 2009, Heart to Heart 

A super easy method of peeling potatoes for this colorful, crunchy, and creamy potato salad - with a little zip!

This tip of a super easy way to peel potatoes is worth repeating with this recipe!  I used this shortcut sent by two Heart to Heart ladies a couple weeks ago in making potato salad and it really works like a charm!  While you are bringing a pot of water to the boiling point, scrub the potatoes.  Using a sharp knife, score each potato all around the center (think of it as the potato's waistline).  You only need to cut through the peel a little bit.  Drop the potatoes into the boiling water and cook until tender (about 20 minutes or so).  Remove the potatoes from the boiling water with tongs and plunge into ice water.  Move them around for about ten seconds until they cool off some.  Take a potato in both hands and pull back the peel on each side.  Works like magic!  This is a great tip to speed up the process of making this potato salad!

For my most recent potato salad I used about 8 potatoes and 10 hard cooked eggs.  While they cooked I prepared the remaining ingredients: about 2 cups of finely chopped celery, about 4 large carrots (chopped up fine in the food processor), 1/2 cup finely sliced fresh spinach, and added Duke's Mayonnaise (the best mayonnaise you can find in the grocery store without sugar and it has such great flavor).  I also sprinkled in some salt, pepper, celery salt, onion powder, dry mustard, and steak seasoning, and added a jar of pepper rings (chopped), found at the Dollar Tree.  After adding the cubed potatoes and chopped eggs, I tasted to see if more seasoning was needed.

The carrots and spinach added color, the celery added crunch, the eggs and mayonnaise added creaminess, and the spices and pepper rings gave it zip!  If you want more zip, try dried crushed red peppers and white pepper!  That ought to do it! 

Last weekend was absolutely gorgeous, and I made more potato salad for a picnic with my husband at our favorite picnic spot.  We drive up a mountain on a very winding country road, past farms and a vineyard to the top, with breathtaking views along the way.  There is a beautiful rustic garden with a small rippling brook, just below the summit on the other side of the mountain near us, filled with pink, red and white azaleas that bloom around this time of year. 

Although azaleas have already been in full bloom down in the valley, just ten minutes from us, way up on this mountain, they were just beginning to bloom.  There's a hiking trail to to the top or an easier one where colorful wild flowers and many birds can be enjoyed along the way.

I was so busy with my thoughts as I was looking forward to going back to our favorite picnic spot to see the azaleas and thinking of happy times there as I made the potato salad, that I completely forgot to score the potatoes around the center!  I learned pretty quickly that step is the key to success in peeling the potatoes with ease is that step!  Live and learn!

When my husband used to have his motorcycle, we would often ride up that very steep, curvy road to this garden with our dinner in the trunk.  Now I realize those who know me can't picture me on a motorcycle, but it was something my husband and I could do together, and we had many fun dates riding. 

Sometimes we'd have a hot dinner in our electric skillet, since it was so close.  We normally eat at the one single picnic table among the azaleas, although there is also a small covered pavilion.  I keep a pack of matches and incense sticks from the dollar store in our picnic basket.  Lighting just one stick usually keeps the bees and mosquitoes away.  As we walked the hiking trail after our picnic, we noticed that special spot where our one son proposed to his sweetheart several years ago on Easter afternoon.  It's a lovely place full of good memories for our family and we've enjoyed meeting friends there for a picnic high up on the mountain.

"Spur of the Moment" Picnics

by Lois Breneman ~ From Heart to Heart ~ © April, 1999 ~ Revised

Now that the weather is so beautiful, keep that picnic basket handy! This week my husband and I have already been on two picnics. I used to think a picnic was all about "typical picnic food" like fried chicken, potato salad, deviled eggs, fresh veggies, apple pie ~ the works! But to me, that's too much work to do very often, not to mention the calories! What I have done for the past several years is just make a regular dinner in the electric skillet and pack our light Correlle dishes and silverware, napkins, serving spoons, water in 16 oz.Tupperware glasses with lids for each of us, a large colorful sheet for a tablecloth, salt and pepper and a wet washcloth in a baggie. Sometimes we take chicken breasts cooked in a variety of ways in the electric skillet, baked potatoes done in the microwave and added to the skillet and a vegetable cooked in the microwave and added to the skillet. All the food is in the electric skillet and still hot when we arrive at our favorite picnic spot just ten minutes away. Any casserole can be baked at home and carried to a picnic, with a salad or vegetable and possibly bread to complete the meal. Try a spaghetti casserole or lasagna. Chili in the crockpot with some bread or crackers makes a nice picnic or tailgate party with the family or friends. Some fresh vegetables and a dessert would round it off.

Last evening we took a green salad, corn on the cob and fruit salad. I put the crunchy seeds and nuts, as well as the dressing in separate Tupperware containers to pour over our salads at the picnic site. The corn on the cob was cooked at home and wrapped in foil. It was still too hot to eat after our salad was eaten, so it will stay hot for quite a while in the foil. A simple fruit salad was refreshing too, but if you don't want to attract mosquitoes, leave bananas out of your summer diet because mosquitoes really love bananas and people who eat them. Repellent may still be needed to keep them completely away.

It was wonderful and so relaxing last evening sitting at our favorite picnic spot among all the azaleas and wild flowers and hearing the singing birds and the rippling brook! Later we went for a walk in the woods. Just a green salad, a baked potato and fresh fruit would even be a nice picnic with very little fuss.

A picnic doesn't need to be fancy at all, and with that misconception out of the way, we are free to be more "Spur of the Moment." A time-saving device in having "Spur of the Moment Picnics" is to have a basket ready with a clean tablecloth, paper plates and cups, plastic knives, forks and spoons (if you'd rather use them, rather than plates and regular flatware, as I usually do), napkins, salt and pepper, and anything else that you can have ready ahead of time. You might keep a list of all the last-minute essential picnic items, such as serving spoons, a wet cloth, butter (if needed), a quilt to spread on the ground in case you can't find a picnic table.

Sometimes you may want to plan to meet other families at a special picnic spot. Each family could bring a dish or two to share with the others and serving spoons for their own dishes. If every family brings their own tablecloth, plates, cups, napkins, utensils and drink, it seems easier. I'm sure that every location, whether here or overseas, has great picnic spots. In our area the Lord has blessed us with quite a few beautiful mountain tops and valleys as well as the Blue Ridge Parkway, and I marvel at and enjoy God's creation every day! But no matter where you live, find a good spot near your home if you plan to take a hot meal. Happy Picnicking!