Granddad Franklin's Potato Salad

10 white potatoes, still warm
2 medium peppers
2 celery stalks
1 onion
1 large tomato
1 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp mustard
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tbsp celery seed
4 oz pimentos
1 cup sweet pickle relish

Cut and mix? I haven't made this yet--maybe I'll sit down with Grandma tomorrow and figure some more detailed directions out. She is apparently the only family member (aside from Great-Granddad Franklin himself) who can make this potato salad right.

Scott's Pasta Salad

1 pound pasta
2 heads broccoli
1/2 head cauliflower
2 carrots
1 cup chopped chicken
1 red or yellow pepper, chopped and raw
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cup freshly shredded Parmesan cheese
Salt & fresh ground pepper to taste

Cook and drain pasta. Cut broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots in bite-size pieces and steam until tender-crisp. Throw everything except the cheese into a big bowl and mix it up. The hot pasta will take a little of the edge off the raw garlic. Add the cheese last, on top of each serving if you like.

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I haven't tried making this recipe yet, but when I ate it (straight from the Kirner kitchen) for the first time, it was amazing. Now that I've rediscovered the recipe, I will make it soon!

Avocado, Tomato, and Corn Salad

makes four servings

1/2 avocado, chopped
1 cup cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 cup fresh, frozen, or low-sodium corn
1 lime, juiced

Combine and toss. Wow, that was easy.

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The original recipe (from who knows where, my mom sent it to me) didn't say to halve the tomatoes, but I went ahead and did it. After poking around a bit, there's a recipe on foodnetwork.com that does say to do that, and has a fancy dressing with cilantro and olive oil and stuff. Really, the lime juice was just fine. They also added red onion. Meh. I put this in our lunchboxes with some leftover lime chicken my mom made and the vegetable remains from the cow bento. Might've been some flatbread too. Yum!

a week's worth

Oi, I haven't updated in almost a week! Somehow my 'not full' schedule still manages to keep me busy. Actually most of last week was leftovers thrown together in creative and not-so-creative ways. I'm trying to use up what's in our fridge and freezer, but that gets hard every time I go shopping and buy more fresh stuff. It's just so much nicer to use vegetables that haven't been frozen. Guess I'm picky.

Especially when I go pull a bag out of the freezer labeled 'really yummy chicken broth' and find out that it also has vegetables in it, most of which are mushy beyond recognition. =p But luckily we do have enough of it to reconstitute a whole chicken, so I threw it all in a pot and added some new vegetables...and eggs...I can't even remember what all I put in it. But hey, throw it all in a tupperware bowl, toss some goldfish on top (plastic wrap in between to prevent soggy expanding goldfish), and it's pretty yummy.

Next day's lunch was slightly more coherent. Salmon teriyaki is a delicious standby when you're out of ideas. I marinated the salmon overnight (using store-bought teriyaki sauce, but it actually wasn't that bad) and wrapped it up alongside snow peas and carrot slices over a bed of Koshihikari (=Kroger brand, more or less) sushi rice. Now, I've read that you need to let the rice cool before putting it in a container to carry around till lunch to keep it from getting soggy. I didn't think of that until after I put it in piping hot (thinking I'd wrap it up and it would stay hot till lunch) but it turned out ok. It wasn't the least bit warm when I finally ate it (not insulated enough I guess), but the rice was beautiful and sticky. Just perfect I think. I knew there was a reason I love short grain rice. This 'bento' got a thumbs up from both parents. I think I'll be doing a lot with salmon this summer.

Finally, for today I made more chicken salad. This batch is colorful! I used red, orange, yellow, and green peppers, red and green apples, celery, and purple grapes. Every color of the rainbow except blue. I toyed with the idea of using blueberries, but maybe I'll save that for a fruitier version. Strawberries, oranges, yellow & green apples, blueberries and grapes? That sounds amazing. Damn, that'd make a sweet fruit salad by itself. With bananas for yellow. But anyway, this week's chix salad is nice and crunchy, and very tasty on dark wheat bread.

I have a few recipes and combo ideas that I'm gonna try later this week. At some point I'll hit Capt. Paul's Seafood when it's actually open and see if I can convince them to sell me fish heads. =D More stories to come!

Chicken Salad part 2

Mom says the bag of m&ms has to go. Being a good daughter, that means I must eat them. Summer diets are silly anyway.

Turns out the gazpacho was really good with chicken and flatbread. Also I realized today that the fruit salad is best eaten the day it's made, or the grapes start turning red and the strawberries get soggy. I think I can handle that.

Lunch tomorrow is chicken salad with pecans walnuts, celery, red and green apples, and fried egg yolks. It's very colorful. I'm trying to think of what else is yellow that I could add...I don't think I want corn in my chicken salad, maybe summer squash or I wonder how plantains would taste?? It should be something crunchy I think. Yellow apples, perhaps. Red grapes and green and/or yellow apples. Drew suggests baked corn tortilla strips (sprinkle with oil and bake at 300° until crispy - I got some tortillas to try this with sometime soon. And glazed nasturtiums. o.O Any other ideas welcome.

I have a rather large amount of this salad, so (also per Drew's suggestion) after sandwiches tomorrow, I'll try it out over a fruity mix, with some combination of grapes, cantaloupe, strawberries, and maybe I'll go get a pineapple. I wonder if I should mix in some kind of herb with it...what would be good with chicken, mayo, and fruit? Elise.com says tarragon (along with cranberries). I'm tempted to add some mint just for kicks.

Broccoli Salad

(tasted, not tested)

broccoli florets
sunflower seeds
raisins
bacon bits
mayo sauce

I'm not sure yet what's in the mayo sauce. (I'm starting to think I should devote my summer to sauces, so I have an easier time figuring out what's in all this stuff!) It's on the sweet side, but it's definitely got some mayo in it, or a really interesting cream of some kind. I also feel like I'm missing an ingredient...I ate this like three hours ago, although admittedly my brain's been a bit fuzzy since then. Maybe ND Food Services will put it in my boxed midnight lunch for tomorrow. Instructions for this are mix and add whatever you want. Sound familiar? I'm thinking a cheesy sauce would be really good too...maybe provolone? Or a ranch/bleu cheese. I'll experiment.

Two Asian Noodle Salads

(one tasted, one tested)

lettuce, shredded (the green kind!)
carrots, shredded
noodles (lo mein or something)
tomatoes, diced
celery, chopped
peanuts
green onions, chopped
cilantro
sesame seeds
lime-peanut sauce

Mix, arrange, garnish. I have no idea what's in the lime-peanut sauce at the moment, but I'll figure something out. I ordered this at Grandma's Bar & Grill in Fargo, ND yesterday. I was particularly interested in the sauce, because it sounded so similar to what I make sometimes with peanuts and noodles. This sauce wasn't thick and creamy like I expected, but more watery, like a salad dressing. It was still good, and all the extra veggies and stuff were really nice and refreshing. You could add chicken for $2, but that might have been a bit much.

cucumbers, peeled and sliced
ham, sliced
eggs, sliced
noodles (udon I think)
sesame seeds
peanut butter
sesame oil

The first three ingredients should be sliced into strips as much as possible. Mix the peanut butter and sesame oil and heat until they're mixed nice and creamy. Pile on some noodles, arrange the cucumbers, ham, and eggs on top, sprinkle some sesame seeds, and give it a generous helping of peanut sauce.

When I do this in the dining hall, I just use the microwave, but if you do it over a stove and add some other fun stuff like soy sauce in, anything could happen. I'm pretty sure there's more to this sauce the way Jenny (my boss) makes it, but I don't know what it is. Personally, I like just the peanut butter best, because the sweetness really complements the other ingredients well. I haven't yet figured out how to keep the sauce from thickening up too much when you add it to the cold salad...I don't know if it's just a matter of adding more oil or some other special ingredient...I'll experiment with this over the summer.

Dining Hall-friendly Chicken Salad

(tested and approved)

chicken breast
mayonnaise
half an apple
celery

optional:
spinach
zucchini
buffalo sauce
nuts
shredded cheese

Cut and mix. Enjoy on a very thick slice of wheat bread (personal preference).

Notes: No, it's no different from chicken salad you can get at Arby's or any grocery store...but it consists entirely of ingredients found in our dining hall. Trust me, the ready-made stuff isn't nearly as tasty as the apple & celery version. I also like mixing in whole spinach leaves and cooking (or microwaving it) just till the chicken's hot, the cheese is melted, and the spinach is spongy. It's a great dorm snack for cold winter nights. (And carb free!)

Jazzy J is my usual test-taster. Rag on him if you disagree with the evaluation of deliciousness.

Vanilla Mint Fruit Salad

(tested and approved)

20-30 oz strawberries, hulled, quartered
2 c seedless green grapes
1/4 c sugar
2 tsp finely chopped fresh mint
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

In short: combine, toss, cover, chill, serve. It looks adorable in tiny dishes (about a quarter-cup serving) and is delicious and refreshing on a warm summer night.

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Brookes made this for us while we were cooking for the five-meat pasta night a few weeks ago. She sent us the recipe afterward from epicurious.com (unimaginatively titled Strawberries and Grapes with Mint and Vanilla) Apparently it is an Italian recipe, and the mint is 'a favorite ingredient in native cooking.' I wasn't too crazy about the idea of vanilla and mint together, but after tasting it I recant all my former feelings. I didn't have time to make it for my parents like I'd hoped, but I did make a big bowl for Adele and me, and we ate it for like a week. I made rice with just a little sushi vinegar and vanilla mixed in and put the fruit on top and packed that for lunch every day. It was delicious!

Edit: Have made this for parents and other relative-type people and it has been universally adored. Added oranges the other day, and it was great. Can't wait to try things like watermelon, peaches, bananas, pineapples, cherries, you get the idea.