Back to Routine with a Classic: Potato Salad

I'm back! June and most of July were very stressful and very busy for me. Luckily from July 20th to August 3rd I was on vacation doing a road trip with Ryan and some friends from Winnipeg - Minneapolis - Chicago - Windsor -Toronto - various provincial campgrounds throughout HWY 17 in Northern Ontario. It was a well deserved break and we got to enjoy some great meals along the way too.

At Chino Latino's in Uptown in Minneapolis. Ryan making silly faces with the remnants of his enchilada.

Chicago Deep Dish Pizza at Giordano's.

Turkey smokies, asparagus, and new potatoes over the campfire on the shores of Lake Superior.

Before our vacation, I had little time or desire to be in the kitchen but now that things have settled down and I'm back to work and my regular routine I've been feeling excited to get into the kitchen again. We got back into the city on July 31st and had a picnic to go to on August 2nd. Now, up until recently I have never liked potato salad. Last year I experimented with a vinaigrette potato salad and found it was alright. A few weeks ago Ryan's aunt made a really nice potato salad that was more along the lines of my taste though. And I recalled Jenn at The Whole Kitchen posting a few different potato salad recipes (which I stole some helpful hints from), so I took all of them into consideration and put together a pretty damn good potato salad. We picked up groceries at The Forks and they had local red potatoes too and fresh local dill and I got to work for the BBQ food. I've come to keeping a jar of the dressing in the fridge most of the time now and just boiling up a bunch of potatoes (whole) in advance to snack on this throughout the week.

A mid-afternoon snack of potato salad with pumkin seeds, honey almonds, gluten free crackers and Tall Grass Prairie Jam, local wild blueberries, green grapes, and cheese from Fenton's.

Mustard Dill Potato Salad

• 3lbs small red potatoes
• 1 cup celery, chopped
• 1/3-1/2 cup toasted sunflower seeds (or pumpkin seeds, or toasted hemp, etc)

Dressing

• 1/4 cup mayo
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1/4 cup fresh dill, chopped (or less if you aren't so dill inclined)
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1/4 cup fresh chives, chopped
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• juice of half a lemon
• 2 1/2 tbsp grainy mustard (experimenting with others is tasty too but this is my favourite so far)
• pepper to taste, I didn't find this needed salt

Put washed, whole potatoes in a large pot of cold water. Bring to a boil, and boil for 10 minutes. Then turn off heat and let potatoes sit fowhr 30 minutes for smaller potatoes, and 35-40 for larger sized ones. Drain, cool, and cut into bite sized pieces - I know some people remove the skins but I think they belong in the salad. Or alternatively, put whole potatoes in fridge and save for use later in the week. Cut up when you're ready to eat it.

Combine dressing ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Either use immediately or put in a container in the fridge for use later in the week. When ready to serve, toss chopped potatoes and celery together. Add dressing and toss - I find I sometimes have a little left over but I like a very light dressing. Before serving, sprinkle the sunflower (flax, hemp, pumpkin, etc) seeds over top. The crunchy seeds are really nice mixed in.