Sides

Summers always meant pasta salad – the kids ask for the recipe so it must have been a hit 🤷🏼‍♀️

Ingredients:

• 1 box tri-color rotini

• 1 can sliced black olives

• 1/2 small red onion

• 2-3 C broccoli florets

• 1 cucumber

• 1 container cherry tomatoes

• 6 oz container crumbled feta cheese

• 1 small bottle greek dressing

• 1/2 C Vegannaise

Preparation:

• Boil the rotini just to al dente

• Lightly steam your broccoli florets (also leave them with a little crunch left!)

• Chop your onion

• Peel, slice, and halve your cucumber

• Cut your cherry tomatoes to halves

• Mix all your chopped vegetables together with the sliced black olives, feta cheese, and blanched broccoli

• Drain pasta and rinse with cool water to stop further cooking

• Once fully drained, add the pasta to the bowl with your other ingredients

• Add in the Vegannaise and stir to cover all ingredients

• Add in the Greek dressing in small amounts at a time to the taste you like

Store in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before serving

So many of the recipes I am posting here are celebrated within our family more for the nostalgia than the recipe distinction.  This is by NO means is an indication of their culinary value – they are all AWESOME – just that they hold familial value in addition to the recipe itself.  My mother’s family arrived through Ellis Island and opened a restaurant/ bar in New York.  That family establishment is long gone but I imagine that German Potato salad was on the menu from time to time.  As a kid, I can remember the feeling I had smelling the smells whenever my mother made this.  Feels like a warm hug just from the memory.  German potato salad always felt so different than the potato salads that other kids brought to school events.    My sister, Maggie, took up the torch of bringing the German Potato salad to family gatherings so I never actually made it until recently.  When I finally tried it – I was delighted!  It’s easy and the smells are still the smells that elicit the feelings of a warm hug.  The only challenge its keeping everyone’s fingers outta the fixin’s before it’s all put together. 

Ingredients

• 1 lb bacon

• 1 large yellow onion, chopped

• 3 peppers, chopped …I use red yellow green but you can use whatever kind you like

• 1 bunch of celery, chopped

• 5lb bag of potatoes … I use white – but again – whatever you like

• 3 hardboiled eggs, sliced

• 1/4 C Malt Vinegar

• Salt n pepper

• Fresh parsley, snipped

Preparation

• Boil the potatoes until they just tender enough to put a fork through easily.  Don’t overcook or it will mush in the salad. Once they are done drain and plunge them in cold water. If you want you can toss the eggs in with the potatoes to hard boil. 

• While the potatoes are boiling, fry up the bacon in a large frying pan.  I cut it into bite size piece before I cook it but … whatever you like!

• Once the bacon is starting to get a little crispy and there are nice bits-n-pieces in the bacon fat, add in the onion, celery and peppers and sauté them right in the bacon fat until they are softened but still have a little crunch left in ‘em.

• Slice the cooked potatoes into a large bowl.  I leave the skin right on. 

• Pour the sautéed onion, pepper, celery and bacon mixture over the potatoes and gently mix to coat the potatoes.

• Add in the snipped parsley (I am guessing a ¼ to half cup – but in truth I just grab a bunch and use kitchen scissors to snip it into the salad)

• Pour the Malt vinegar over the salad and toss.  I often add malt vinegar until it tastes the way I want it to – OR I leave a bottle next to the salad for folks to add to their own taste. (My sister uses red wine vinegar – it’s yummy but it stains everything red so … up to you!)

• Season with Salt and Pepper to taste. 

• Slice the boiled eggs and garnish the salad with the slices before you set it out.  Paprika and a coupla sprigs of parsley as garnish are nice too!

The secret to this recipe is to not overcook the potatoes before you shred them.  Also – never never never try to use frozen shredded hash brown potatoes for this recipe – that is blasphemy.  This recipe is present at all family holidays, regardless of the main menu, this is an absolute non-negotiable, table-stakes, must-have side dish.  It is entirely unhealthy (no redeeming calories at all) and undeniably delicious!  I think it was originally found by my mother-in-law in a magazine somewhere long ago.  But it is now forever known as Grambea potatoes  (pronounced puh-Day-Dahs) since she was the first to make the recipe for the family who have become unapologetic holiday junkies for this stuff!

Ingredients

• 6 larger Yukon gold potatoes (use 8 if they are small)

• 1 stick butter, melted

• 1 pint sour cream

• 3-4 chopped scallions

• 8 oz shredded cheddar cheese

• S&P to taste

• If you want a little kick, add a little Uncle Tony’s or other hot pepper to the top

Preparation

• Parboil your potatoes to just underdone

• Drain and plunge into cold water  to cool

• Preheat oven to 350

• Peel the skins from the cooked and cooled potatoes

• Using a large grater shred the potatoes into a large casserole dish.

• Season with S&P (I use a little Uncle Tony’s seasoning sometimes for a little zip – but JUST a little)

• Add the sour cream to the potatoes using a fork to keep the fluff in the potatoes as you mix it in

• Melt butter in a small pan

• Drizzle across the casserole, tossing with the fork to blend butter and keep fluffy

• I use scissors to simply cut the scallions into the casserole

• Sprinkle the shredded cheddar evenly across the casserole

• Use a fork to blend the scallions and cheese in while keeping the potatoes fluffy

• Bake for 45 minutes and check – might need another 15 minutes depending on how you like it.  I prefer crispy edges so I leave it in until there’s a little brown around the edges.