Salads

Aside from making curries from scratch, salads are my particular passion, so I am going to put up some of my most popular salad recipes. I will also put dressing options up as well.

The first one I have been asked about is Potato Salad. So here goes:

16 chat potatoes, skin on
2 boiled eggs, peeled
1/2 cup mayonnaise (bought or made - I will post how to make mayonnaise separately)
1/2 cup sour cream (low fat is fine)
2 rashers bacon, chopped
2 Tablespoons Wholegrain (seeded) Mustard
1 Tablespoon Dijon Mustard
Juice of 1 Lemon
2 Tablespoons Chopped Parsley
Salt and Pepper

Depending on the size of the potatoes, you can leave them whole or half or quarter them. Then boil or steam them until they are tender.

While you are doing this, Get a large bowl and add the mayonnaise, sour cream, Wholegrain and Dijon Mustards, Lemon juice and half the parsley.

Fry your bacon pieces until they are done to your liking. Add them to the bowl for dressing, including any fat that has rendered out.

Using a whisk, mix the dressing ingredients thoroughly, and taste for seasoning. Add salt or pepper if needed.

You can also add the eggs at this stage, if you like. You can crumble them up and mix them through the dressing or chop them up for a topping, or a mix of both if you like.

When the potatoes are ready, drain and allow them to dry off a bit. Then put them in the bowl with the dressing, and make sure all the potatoes get covered in the dressing. You may want to use your hands for this.

Use the remaining chopped parsley to garnish.

This can be served hot or cold.

More Pasta - Creamy!

My last post was about making tomato pasta sauce bases more exciting on the cheap. This one is creamy instead.

You can use different types of creams, thickened or pure or sour cream all work well, as do low fat versions.

Different things work better with tomato based sauces than creamy ones. There is hardly any work to be done for creamy sauces. The same principle as before applies. Get a pot of water on to boil for the pasta, and get everything else happening while that is boiling.

You can put pretty much anything in a creamy sauce, but I generally like strong tasting things with cream, as the cream will damp the strength a bit down a little bit.

So, while you pasta is boiling, chop up whatever you want to use in your sauce (again, get whatever is cheapest)and start cooking it in butter or oil. When you are ready to serve it, drain the pasta, and stir enough cream in to draw all your other ingredients together.

Good ingredients for creamy sauces include:

Mushrooms
Chicken
Bacon
Onion
Garlic
Sundried Tomato
Chargrilled Eggplant
Chargrilled Zucchini
Roasted Capsicum
Chilli
Parsley

Remember again, cut your ingredients small so they cook quickly, and you can have dinner ready is 15 minutes!

A super easy creamy sauce can be made by cooking off a tablespoon or two of pesto, then mixing through cream to make it a sauce consistency.