Losing weight, finding me, healthy, easy recipes

Archive for June, 2011

Big

Monday was a big day — HUGE! We picked our first red tomatoes of the season, the first purple bell pepper we’ve ever harvested here, chard, basil and squash. Our sweet corn is tassling. I squoze into a pair of size 18 white summer slacks (never mind that one of my good friends told me in April that she knew it was time to lose weight when she had to move up into an 18 — I’m thrilled to move down), and I can avoid cholesterol-lowering drugs for at least another six months and, I hope, forever.

About a year ago my total cholesterol number was 327. Today it’s 245. Still not great, but better. More importantly, my bad cholesterol number went from a whopping 183 three months ago to 158 today. Yee-haw! That’s with diet and exercise and a weight loss of 31 pounds. No reason why I can’t continue until the numbers are really good.

Basically, unless I screw it up, I’ve been blessed with good health, and it’s waaay past time to quit tossing away that blessing. The tough part — or one of the tough parts — is that this isn’t something to be fixed and forgotten. I can’t eat well until I reach my desired weight and then dive into the chips and chocolate. This has to be the way I eat and exercise for as long as I can manage. Which should be longer if I maintain the daily baby carrots, 9 to 11 glasses of water, etc.

So, in order to be successful at healthy eating, we need to find healthy foods that taste great, that we can look forward to while pedaling our bikes uphill in swampy heat and humidity.

We grew chard this year for the first time, a nutritional powerhouse that I’ve never used in cooking. I thought it was a small, cold-weather leafy vegetable. Apparently, we planted the Amazonian version because ours is knee-high and flourishing in days of 90-plus-degree heat.

And in the July issue of Better Homes and Garden magazine is a recipe for Garlic Bread with Chard, pretty much your standard garlic bread with a nutritional kick. Using a 1-pound loaf of good-quality bread, make your usual recipe. Rinse and chop enough fresh chard leaves to make 3 to 4 cups coarsely chopped chard.

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Toss the chopped chard in 1 to 1-1/2 tablespoons good olive oil** and stuff between slices of prepared bread. Wrap the loaf in foil and set on a baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes or until heated through. Makes 8 or 9 slices.

This would be terrific with the summer’s first marinara sauce and whole-grain pasta.

**If you like, you can throw chopped chard in boiling water for 3 minutes to reduce oxalic acid content (before draining and tossing in oil), but roasting time and small amount per serving also make the sturdy leaves very tasty.

 

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healthy cooking, Seasonal food, Weight loss

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God and details

Oops: My friend Eleanor P. noticed that God and I left the milk out of the actual soup recipe below! Add 1 cup skim milk. Thank you Eleanor!

 

My friend Michon and I ate in the garden at the Village Tavern in Winston-Salem last Thursday night. Big green umbrellas, little white lights, black-clad servers and the best bruschetta I’ve ever put in my mouth (never had it with a dollop of garlic-laced pesto accompanying the diced tomato, capers and Parmesan).

Michon’s lost about 35 pounds in less than a year and is tired of people telling her she doesn’t need to lose any more. She gave up diet sodas and red meat almost entirely, waits a bit before eating a good breakfast every morning (she used to eat anything as soon as she got out of bed and stayed hungry for the rest of the day) and discards half the bread from every sandwich. That’s it. No grueling exercise routine although she does say she notices that she just moves more now, all day, every day.

She’s more than 15 years younger than I so her metabolism helps. A woman my age (66 in a month) has the metabolism of a hibernating turtle, if that. Also, even though I was exercising, I’d got into a sedentary way of life. (And I was horrified to see when I started using livestrong.com that my exercise was considered “light.”)

Illustrating the principles of inertia, that means: Once out of motion, stay that way. I sat a LOT, asked He Who Was Up to get me things, to go up and down the stairs for me (this is why he’s only gained 6 pounds since quitting tobacco in November). Once I was down, I was down for the count. Once I dropped something, I hoped for someone else to bend over and get it. (Now I’m saying to myself, “You’ve just got rid of 31 pounds. You can do that!”)

The usual aches and pains contribute to this mindset. Like the commercial for one of those drugs that may cause your eyeballs to fall out says, If you’re moving, you’re more likely to keep moving. But you’re less likely to move if you hurt. And, of course, if you move, you’re less likely to hurt and get moving again. It’s an endless wheel: Keep moving, no matter, or eventually, you’ll stop.

So this morning, I’m going to do 15 minutes of yoga stretches and then go ride my horse for 45 minutes or an hour, depending on the heat already at 8 a.m. That’s not a vigorous exercise (for me, it is for her) but I’m going to count it as one of my 5 weekly 30-minute moderate sessions. Tomorrow morning I’ll ride my bike before I go to work (vigorous) and tonight and tomorrow night I’ll take 1 ibuprofen to be able to sleep.

And I’m going to make us bowls of Jane Brody’s Mexican Zucchini Soup with oodles of zuchini, corn, onion, green chilies, skim milk, a bit of Jack cheese and garnishes of fresh parsley and nutmeg (hah, you thought you were safe from more zucchini, didn’t you?). God is in the details here, in the nutmeg and robust, flat-leaved parsley peeping out from under a volunteer sunflower in our herb garden.

Mexican zucchini soup

1 small onion, chopped (1/3 cup)

1-1/2 teaspoons (1/2 tablespoon) olive oil

2 cups poultry or vegetable broth, low-sodium if possible

2 cups unpeeled, diced zucchini

1-1/2 cups corn kernels

2 tablespoons finely chopped green chilies or jalapeno peppers (fresh or canned)

1/2 teaspoon salt, if desired

Generous grinding of black pepper

2 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, cut into 1/4-inch cubes

Minced fresh parsley and ground nutmeg to garnish

In large saucepan, saute onion in olive oil until it’s tender or carmelized, your choice. Stir in broth, zucchini, corn, chilies, salt and pepper. Bring soup to a boil, reduce heat, cover pan and cook until zucchini is tender, maybe 5 minutes.

Stir in milk and heat soup until it’s hot but not boiling. Remove soup from heat and stir in cheese. Garnish with parsley and nutmeg. 4 main or 6 first-course servings.

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Exercise, healthy cooking, Seasonal food, Weight loss

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Just when you thought it was safe

…to leave off admiring the goldfinch swinging on a black-eyed Susan seed head the size of an olive pit and go back in the kitchen, another heap of summer squashes appears.  And you’re ready with another unexpectedly wonderful recipe (something more than the chile to which you added chunks of zucchini before simmering).

This Mexican Chicken Casserole with Charred Tomato Salsa is from the January/February 2011 issue of Cooking Light magazine. You’ll use lots of dishes during the preparation, and it takes a bit of time. The recipe says 25 minutes of prep time, but I took longer. However, it was a Saturday morning when I had time, and it makes 8 servings — that’s 4 meals for us two, me and the Farmer in the Dell.

The taste is full and light at the same time. I like dishes with zip in hot weather, and this one has just enough with the jalapeno, chili powder and feta cheese. Also, it has only 331 calories and 12.3 g of fat (6.1 saturated) per serving. It tastes like much more.

Mexican chicken casserole with charred tomato salsa

For the salsa: 8 plum tomatoes, halved and seeded

3 garlic cloves, peeled and minced

1 small onion, peeled and chopped

1 seeded jalapeno papper, quartered

Cooking spray

1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro (I used parlsey — to me, cilantro tastes as gym socks smell)

3 tablespoons fresh lime juice (must be fresh)

Freshly ground pepper to taste

For the casserole:

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup fresh, frozen or canned and rinsed corn kernels

1 cup diced zucchini

1 cup chopped red bell pepper

3 cups shredded cooked chicken

1 tablespoon minced garlic

2 teaspoons chili powder

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 10-ounce can green chile enchilada sauce (I used green salsa because it was all I could find)

1 4-ounce can chopped green chiles

12 6-inch corn tortillas

1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Monterety Jack cheese

1 cup (4 ounces) crumbled feta cheese

Heat broiler. Combine plum tomatoes, garlic cloves, small onion and jalapeno  on baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Broil until charred, stirring frequently. Remove from oven; cool slightly. Place mixture in food processor; add cilantro, lime juice and pepper. Process until smooth.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

To prepare casserole, heat large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion, corn, zucchini and bell pepper; saute 5 or 6 minutes or until tender. Add chicken, minced garlic, chili powder, cumin, enchilada sauce and green chiles; cook  until heated through. Remove from heat.

Spread 1/2 cup salsa over bottom of 13 x 9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Arrange six tortillas over salsa. Spoon 2 cups chicken mixture evenly over tortillas. Top with 3/4 cup salsa. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of each cheese. Add another layer each of tortillas, chicken mixture, salsa and cheeses. Bake at 350 or until bubbly. (Or you can refrigerate for up to a day and bake later. In which case, turn off that oven you just pre-heated!)

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good food, healthy cooking, Seasonal food

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Presto, pesto!

If it’s summer, it’s time to make pesto and, like a squirrel storing nuts for the winter, freeze ice-cube size nuggets for the chilly months when the Mediterranean herb does not flourish here.

The Silver Palate cookbook and the revised Joy of Cooking have similar recipes, both wonderful and both loaded with olive oil, cheese and nuts. The pine nut is the nut of choice for pesto, but unless you’re willing to take out a second mortgage to buy them, you can do very well with the more modestly priced walnut.

Jane Brody’s original Good Food Book (1985) uses the same 2 cups of basil leaves and 3 garlic cloves but slashes the amounts of the other ingredients. The result? An even greener taste with less fat.

A food processor is mandatory. For years after my friend and fabulous cook Catherine Chapin Mayhew introduced me to pesto in the first place, I struggled to make it in a blender. This takes approximately 3 hours longer than the average childbirth as each leaf winds itself around the blender blade. In a food processor you have  pesto in seconds.

Pesto

3 big, fat cloves garlic

1/4 teaspoon salt, optional

1/4 cup best-quality olive oil

2 cups firmly packed washed, dried fresh basil leaves

1/4 cup pine nuts or walnuts

1/2 cup grated Parmesan

In food processor combine ingredients and whiz until desired consistency. Makes about 1-1/4 cups. That’s a couple of suppers immediately (store, covered, in refrigerator) or you can freeze pesto in 1/2 or 1-cup containers or by the tablespoon in ice-cube trays. As soon as the pesto cubes freeze, knock them into a zippered freeze bag or other freezer container.

Now you’re ready for the perfect summer supper: Whole-grain pasta, a fresh tomato chopped and seeded, some feta cheese crumbles and pesto to sauce. Uber-yum!

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healthy cooking, Seasonal food

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Bender

If I were a problem drinker, last night would have been a bender — my first since last fall. But I’m a problem eater which means I started with too many (unsalted at least) cashews, moved onto ice cream, cheese and cookies and this morning probably feel almost as lousy as if I had been drinking.

Also, the scales are up 6 pounds from a week ago. (My sister’s upset because she has put on 4 pounds since her last annual physical. Amateur!)

I didn’t enjoy the experience nearly as much as I enjoy feeling slimmer and in control of my eating. So why the heck did I do it?

It starts with fatigue. I was exhausted from driving nearly 1,000 miles in 5 days,  sleeping in three different beds and letting my exercise slide during those days. Like a drunk, I started and slid right down the slippery slope. Why is it so much harder to stop after one misstep? Why keep on eating through the evening as though bedtime is some sort of real divider between time to binge and time to pull up my socks and fall back in line?

I had few problems while we traveled and ate out, ordering appetizers and salads in restaurants, sharing desserts, drinking one elf-sized  Corona in the entire 120-some hours away from my obsessive-compulsive calorie counting in Livestrong.com.

But last night, alone in a house I’m so ready to move away from, far from my children, I must have felt unnurtured and uncared for and what better way to care for myself than to eat a couple thousand calories? It’s a life habit and a dreadful one that, I hope, just had to rear its ugly head once again before I climb back on the daunting diet wagon this morning.

So as I told our youngest daughter in a weekend cliche-fest addressed to all our challenges, life is a matter of repeatedly  picking ourselves up, dusting ourselves off and starting all over again. And as my friend Dannye R.P. says wisely, it’s not how you handle yourself when things are going well that determines the person you are……Sigh. As that youngest daughter adds, “Being a grownup sucks!” Indeed, but it is the only way to navigate successfully over the long, long-term.

Being a grownup today will mean for me cooking something healthy with the summer squash tsunami that occurred in our absence. Something like this lovely melange from the March issue of Southern Living magazine.

Sauteed baby squash and leeks

1-1/2 pounds assorted squash babies, halved lengthwise

1 cup prepared baby leeks**

2 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese (reduced-fat if you, too, have gone astray)

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil

Saute squash and leeks in hot oil in large skillet over medium-high heat 5 minutes or until tender. Season with salt and pepper to taste; sprinkle with cheese and basil. Serves 6.

**To prepare leeks, which likely  have grit trapped between the layers of stem sheaths, cut off and discard all but white and light green parts. Halve length-wise, slice halves very thinly and wash in bowl of clean water. Leeks will float to top  — lift off and drain. Grit will sink; discard with dirty water.

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healthy cooking, Seasonal food, self-image, vegetables

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Zucchini, the sequel

And they keep on coming, thank goodness. These are the best of the dark green little jokers we’ve ever grown. And that is a swell thing because we have lots of vegetable-impaired friends and because I can make zucchini souffle.

This is a wonderful, goof-proof recipe from the Fourth Creek Meeting House Encore cookbook our church published in 2003 on its 250th anniversary.  The recipe’s provenance (I’ve always wanted to use that word!) is in some dispute. According to one member, it’s her mother’s and no one else’s. It’s in our cookbook twice under two different names,  but that’s OK because it’s that good.

This souffle will not fall. It has nowhere to go because biscuit mix is propping it up. It’s good hot from the oven, at room temperature or even cold. It’s a wonderful main dish with a green salad or slaw and lots of mint tea, or it’s a perfectly splendid side dish. Any way you eat it, it’s genuinely and surprisingly good. He Who Can Actually Plant Seeds in a Straight Row sniffed in disdain  once but never again after he’d eaten it.

Zucchini souffle

3 cups grated unpeeled zucchini

1 cup baking mix (like Bisquick)

1 small onion, minced

1/2 to 3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon seasoning salt

1/2 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

Mix together zucchini, baking mix, onion, Parmesan (I use the larger amount) and seasoning salt. In a second bowl mix together eggs and oil. Pour liquid mixture into dry mixture, combine. Grease souffle dish. Pour souffle mixture into dish and bake 1 hour at 350 degrees. Says it serves 6 to 8 but that’s never happened at our house!

And p.s., 31 pounds gone as of yesterday. I’m having popcorn with Move Over Butter for supper tonight to celebrate. Tomorrow morning I’m getting up at 5 again so I can exercise before I go to work. Read today that 5 moderate 30-minute workouts and 3 strenuous 20-minute workouts weekly are the minimum I should be aiming for. Seems to me I’m going to need another day of the week!

 

 

 

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Exercise, Local food, Seasonal food, Weight loss

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30 pounds gone

One of the nice things about dropping 30 pounds is that I’m more easily able to hop into the saddle for a morning trail ride. Well, not hop exactly, but the screaming is at least more muted when I  wrap my short legs around my 1,200-pound mare’s barrel.

Two of the not so great things about riding this early, almost-summer morning: After slathering myself with sunblock, every white hair I brush off her lands and sticks on me until I look like a Yeti. Also, the squished 2-foot copperhead at the end of my in-laws’ driveway is bound to have relatives in the area. Cranky relatives.

But I’m going to think about saddling the beautiful Belle with 30 fewer pounds in these tropical temperatures. And how, if it’s true what we read about every excess pound putting 3 pounds of pressure on each weight-bearing joint, then my joints should be feeling about 90 pounds lighter!

I’m going to remember this is not the end. In fact, there will be no end, much as I love ends, love checking things off my list, tying them in bows and putting them away in dark closets. I need to eat intelligently forever and ever, world without end. That’s why they say, don’t call it a diet but a lifestyle change.

At the weekend’s two parties that meant skipping the main dishes and filling my plates with salads, avoiding the potato salads entirely. No dessert at yesterday’s church picnic, one serving Saturday night of the evil concoction made by layering ice cream sandwiches with chocolate and caramel sauces, fake whipped cream and Butterfinger pieces.

I was able to distract my bottomless appetite at both places (remember: you can’t eat ice cream in the shower) by taking photos of the celebrants. Nice to have the pictures afterward and nice not to be pigging out during.

On the way home from the dentist’s today I started to de-rail myself with a plan to hit the Harmony Cafeteria for lunch. This is always good and never a good idea for stout persons such as myself. Instead, I rallied and called He Who Packs his Lunch for Work with Multiple Sweets and said I’d fix the spicy chicken quesadillas from Desperation Dinners (Beverly Mills & Alicia Ross, 1997, Workman Publishing Co.).

They’re not particularly low-calorie, but you can keep the fat content under control by using reduced-fat cheese and grating it yourself. Or make one of these quesadillas your splurge for the day and eat a 250-calorie frozen supper (if you can accommodate all that sodium in your day’s meal plan).

Cheesy chicken quesadillas

2 12.5-ounces cans chicken breast in water

1 tablespoon chile powder

2 teaspoons bottled garlic

2 cups (8 ounces) shredded Mexican-blend cheese

8 8-inch or 12 6-inch whole-grain tortillas

Rinse and drain the canned chicken. (You can, of course, use a similar amount of leftover chicken.) Mix with chile powder, garlic and cheese. Heat some good olive oil in a non-stick skillet (the original directions call for cooking spray, but I like the crunch you get with a bit of hot oil). Assemble 4 or 6 quesadillas (depending on size of your tortillas) and begin browning them carefully in the skillet, flattening each with a spatula to speed up the melting cheese. If you cook in oil, drain on paper towels. Cut each quesadilla into 4 pieces. Serve with gloriously fresh pineapple,  some baby carrots and a glass of ice-cold skim milk. Reheat quesadillas in toaster oven to revive that delicious crunch.

 

 

Category:

Rural life, Weight loss

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All mimsy were ye borogoves

I’ve never had a clue what this line from Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” means, but to me, just the sounds of it describe our ride this early morning. Ye borogoves were all mimsy with Michaelmas and ox-eye daisies, Queen Anne’s lace, blue spiderwort and pink phlox, milkweed, hairy vetch (purple), orange daylilies ,  ripening red blackberries, wild onions (purple), low bindweed, deadly nightshade and  New Jersey tea (white), crimson honeysuckle, butterfly weed, rabbit ‘baccer, butter-and-eggs and dandelions.

I’m sad we don’t have bastard toadflax (that I know of) because it’s my new favorite wildflower name.

When we first got to the bottom of our hill, turned off the gravel and rode out onto the Kennedy Creek bottom land planted in corn, a red-tail hawk floated overhead, the sun shining through its rosy tail feathers. For the rest of the ride, though, I pretty much focused on the coffee and  zucchini bread planned for breakfast. That and the need to shampoo my mare’s white (now orange) mane and tail. (If I have a next horse, it will match our red Carolina clay.)

As part of trying to become a smaller person physically, I’m out in the early mornings to do something physical before the temperatures hit steambath level. As part of trying to become part of a larger world than the one I’ve got used to in the last 23 years, I hope I’m listening and observing more keenly. We’ll see.

Cabbage rolls around here right now like heads during the Reign of Terror. This morning I made slaw for a graduation party tonight with regular cabbage, red cabbage, Chinese cabbage, currants, toasted almonds and grated carrots, dressed it with equal parts plain yogurt and low-fat mayonnaise, lots of white pepper and salt (most of these folks will have been out on their horses in the heat of the day), the juice of one lemon and 2 teaspoons sugar (this is a BIG bowl of slaw).

Another picnic tomorrow and I’m taking more deviled eggs and a loaf of zucchini bread with brown sugared cream cheese. And another 10 pounds of zucchini just walked in the door. Along with two baskets of potatoes, one white and one red. Summertime and the livin’ is all about vegetables.

 

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good food, healthy cooking, Rural life, Weight loss

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Attack of the killer zucchini

They’re out there — lying in wait, hiding under leaf umbrellas, inching toward the house, growing in the dark. And as soon as we drop our guard, they’ll be in the house — covering the counters and tumbling to the floor. It’s zucchini season, and for the next month every day will be a pitched battle to stay ahead of the crop.

Today we had sort of a stir-fry for lunch with leftover grilled chicken, onion, garlic, lots of zucchini and a little Parmesan. And I made a double batch of The Silver Palate Cookbook (1982) zucchini bread.

Now, before you wrinkle your nose, know that this is a zucchini bread like no other — soft, rich, spicy, studded with walnut pieces. It’s cake, really.

Back in the early 1980s when then-Charlotte Observer book editor Dannye Romine Powell tossed this book across my newroom desk and asked if I were interested, I had no idea how it would shape my ideas of cooking and eating.  Authors Julee Rosso & Sheila Lukins (with Michael McLaughlin) believe(d) in fresh — fresh food, fresh taste and fresh combinations. Almost 30 years later I’m still using the tattered shreds of that original paperback.

You make the zucchini bread thusly. And you can double or triple the recipe if you like. You probably will like because any two eaters of only modest skills can demolish a loaf in a day, day and a half, tops!

 

Silver Palate Zucchini Bread

3 tablespoons sweet butter

3 eggs

1-1/4cups vegetable oil

1-1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups grated (unpeeled) raw zucchini

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 cup walnuts, chopped

Heat your oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9- x 5-inch loaf pan with the butter. Beat eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla until light and thick. Fold zucchini into oil mixture. Stir baking soda and powder into flour and stir dry ingredients into wet mixture. Fold in walnuts. Pour batter into loaf pan. Bake on middle rack of the oven for 1-1/4 hours or until cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans, run knife around all edges and set loaves right-side-up on cooling rack before wrapping for later eating or freezing.

Served with cream cheese embellished with a bit of brown sugar and cinnamon, this is one of the top reasons for summer.

I will try and keep my consumption under control (like last night with the unsalted cashews when I ate only 1/4 cup) because this morning I hit the 29- pounds-gone point. That’s darn close to 30. And I rode my scarey bike UP our alpine driveway for the first time. It was a real “Rocky” moment.I woo-hoo’ed.

Heat or no, I’m definitely stronger and that feels good. I may yet get to the point where I agree with friends Catherine M. and Sally N., who both say being skinny feels better than anything tastes.

 

 

 

 

Category:

Exercise, good food, Local food, Weight loss

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In praise of Laurie Colwin

Many food writers claim Elizabeth David, M.F.K. Fisher or Julia Child as their first inspirations. For me it was Laurie Colwin’s “Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen” (Vintage Contemporaries paperback, reprinted 2010). Originally published in 1988, Colwin’s was the first food writing to speak to me in a distinct voice. Chatty, funny, sensual, she wrote rambling, personal chapters about different landmark foods in her life — sometimes she didn’t even include a “real” recipe.
But for 22 years I’ve made her potato salad (also her oven-baked ribs) and served it to general acclaim. It tastes bright and fresh and is a textbook lesson in why you should grow your own potatoes or buy little babies from a local grower. Potatoes dug when field corn turns from the color of a John Deere tractor to a darker shade of green have a melted butter texture and tender skins.
Boil as many of these as you think you’ll need for a meal and leftovers. (With a sliced hard-boiled egg, this makes a wonderful summer breakfast.)  If you’re boiling freshly dug and scrubbed potatoes (I don’t peel them but do wash and cut  them into bite-size chunks), they won’t need more than 10 to 15 minutes. Stick a fork in to tell by feel. You don’t want them to disintegrate in potato salad — that’s a different dish, one called smashed potatoes!
Drain cooked potatoes and in salad bowl mix together reduced-fat mayonnaise, the juice of half a large lemon, a handful of fresh (never dried!) minced dill, a couple of finely chopped green onions and five to six generous turns of freshly ground black pepper.  Eyeball the mixture to guesstimate if you have enough for your potatoes, and gently toss the potatoes in the dressing.
Take a taste. The lemon juice needs at least a couple of hours to “mellow” so don’t be alarmed if there’s a sharp taste of citrus. If you can’t taste lemon, you probably want to juice the other half. Other than that, do you need anything else? A LITTLE salt perhaps? Now’s the time to add because tender potato pieces are going to soak up all the flavors in the fridge while they chill.
That’s all there is to making the perfect potato salad. Since first eating this, I may have tried one or two other recipes (He Who Thinks Cookies Are a Food Group periodically requests “bacon, bacon, bacon”), but this is my gold standard. Sort of like the original Silver Palate’s brownie recipe with espresso powder and cinnamon added — nothing beats it.

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good food, healthy cooking, Local food, Summer salads

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