Potato Salad
This originally came from my Grandma, although I’ve modified it a bit. She added black olives and pimentos, which I usually leave out. And she used about half the amount of pickles I use while I use about half the amount of sour cream she used!
I had read somewhere about adding the vinegar while the potatoes are still warm so I do that now and I think it is better. My sister makes this and probably has her own variation.
Read the full recipe for potato salad.
I saw An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Graceby Tamar Adler mentioned online and it sounded intriguing. Economy AND Grace in food. It’s not only a lovely book to read, but is full of great ideas about home cooking. The first idea I took from it was about roasting vegetables ahead of time and then using them throughout the week in a variety of ways, from soups to salads to main dishes. Sunday I roasted a cauliflower and a butternut squash that I had around, as well as some nuts.
Roast Vegetables and Bread
Last night I took some of each, along with some roasted walnuts and onions, and made a salad along the lines of one of her suggestions.
Roast Vegetable Salad
Earlier I had made an olive bread with a mix of green olives and kalamata olives. It is delicious! I was nervous because it was way wetter than normal in the bread machine. I just added a bit more flour a spoonful at a time while it was kneading until it looked right. It came out beautifully!
I also had some hardboiled eggs (from my hens) and some artichokes from my own garden. Oh, the butternut squash was one I’d grown and harvested last fall. It was my last.
So dinner was a lovely mishmash of:
It’s different than my normal meals and I loved it.
The book does have recipes in it but far more valuable are the ideas. Using up what you’ve got, repurposing ingredients so you’re not eating “leftovers,” and trying new things. It’s an inspiring and lovely book to read. Her writing is joyful. I don’t know how else to describe it.
It was just that kind of a day here! I barbecued a whole chicken on a “beer can” thing I picked up on clearance somewhere, something like this one: Bayou Classic 0880-PDQ Stainless-Steel Beercan ChickCAN Rack
Rub a bit of olive oil onto the chicken and then spread the rub on it.
If you live anywhere where rosemary will survive, you should grow it and never buy it at the grocery store again! The fresh has such a great taste. Where I live (San Francisco bay area) it is a hearty perennial. I trim the bush with shears a couple of times a year and throw away armfuls of it. My favorite pruning job as it smells so good! But whenever I need rosemary, I just go snip some off the bush.
The potato salad recipe I’ll share tomorrow if I get a chance, along with a picture. I vary the ingredients and quantities a bit but the key is something I picked up from my grandmother: use half mayonnaise and half sour cream. She called it “Nippy Potato Salad” but I use lots more crunchy things (celery, pickles) than she did and usually leave out the hard boiled eggs.
The carrot salad is what I got from Jamie Oliver, posted here. I left the mandarin oranges out this time, opting for simple. Roughly a 3:1 ratio of olive oil to lemon juice, like a vinaigrette.
Yogurt Bread
I’ve been making bread and yogurt regularly the past few weeks. The yogurt gets eaten, fed to chickens as a treat and baked with in my daughter’s favorite bread: yogurt bread. And the hens have been laying well so…
The other morning I decided to make French toast with some of that yogurt bread and some fresh eggs. I always liked making French toast with Texas Toast, which is sliced thicker. Well, when you are making your own bread you can get those thick slices too!
French Toast
I use a rough ratio of 1 egg : 1/4 cup milk plus a pinch of salt, some sugar, some vanilla and some ground cinnamon for French toast. You can see the French toast recipe here.
I cook it on a griddle and top it with butter and maple syrup. A bit sweet for a normal breakfast but quite good for a treat!
You can freeze the leftovers if you won’t eat them up right away.
Several people asked what kind of bread machine I bought. I did splurge. That’s why I made the commitment that I would use it for nearly all my bread, pizza, and so forth. I bought a Zojirushi BB-CEC20WB Home Bakery Supreme 2-Pound-Loaf Breadmaker, White
When I bought the machine, the white one was $40 cheaper than what it is going for now. That’s still a lot of money. But I like fresh bread and while I would make it periodically by hand or with the no-knead version, this is turning out to be the right answer for us.
This machine can also make jams apparently, although I have not yet tried that. I have made a dozen loaves of bread so far, plus pizza several times (using the dough setting).
At the same time I bought this machine, I bought a new bread machine cookbook because I wanted to experiment more. After reading a ton of reviews on Amazon, I ended up with The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook: A Master Baker’s 300 Favorite Recipes for Perfect-Every-Time Bread-From Every Kind of Machine
When avocados are in season, I just can’t get enough of them. One of my favorite breakfasts is just toast spread with avocado, and very lightly salted.
Avocado
My other current favorite breakfast is homemade granola with fresh yogurt and a drizzle of honey on top.
Granola
I have an old favorite homemade granola recipe here but lately I’ve been making a different one lately, that makes a smaller batch of granola which is better for my smaller family at the moment.
Do you compost? I have for years so the kids are well-trained to toss kitchen scraps into the bowl. I just keep a bowl sitting behind the sink and try to empty it once a day into the compost pile and periodically scrub it out. The scraps make a great addition to the compost, which goes into my vegetable garden, which then supplies my kitchen–so it IS part of cheap cooking!
Compost bowl
Do you compost? What kind of container do you use? This is just a cheap metal bowl I picked up at Target.
