To Bring a Side to a Cookout: Bacon Potato Anxiety Salad Edition

This is essentially German potato salad, which if you're unfamiliar is a warm potato salad with a vinegar based dressing and some bacon. I'm mostly comfortable with making the recipe: boil the potatoes, fry some bacon, sautee some chopped onion in the bacon fat, make a dressing of vinegar, mustard & sugar. Let the taters soak it all in while they're warm. THAT is KEY. (I've still no idea how much vinegar mustard OR sugar, but I do know that you should drain more bacon fat than I did; because although bacon fat is absolutely the best thing in the world, it's hard to cut, even with apple cider vinegar.)

So, when I offered to bring a side dish to a cookout, you'd maybe think I'd just make the thing I know how to make. But, I don't follow that rule (sometimes to bad results) of "don't make something for a party unless you've tried it before!" because, while I appreciate the notion that Maggie from accounting always reliably brings her buffalo chicken dip to the party that everyone loves! I more appreciate a risk that hopefully pays off with everyone being like: OMG WHITNEY I LOVE YOU (and your cooking, etc etc). Often, the exercise ends in nothing like that happening and I'm riddled with anxiety as people try the foods I've been pouring over, because well, I've never gotten feedback on the dish except for this moment now when if they DO praise me I'll be convinced they're lying to not hurt my feelings. And, after the party they're like: "dude Whitney's salad was GROSS."

LIKE I DO: instead of just making the thing I've made before, I read about 6000 articles about what people usually bring to cook outs. [Googled: "BEST potato salad" "Orgasmic coleslaw" "BITCHES fucking LOVE this SIDE dish."] I learned, and this is not scientifically proven, but a lot of the peoples bring potato salads to parties. A lot of those fools put mayonnaise in their dressing and some do not think to add any green. To me, those are necessary components, or non-components to a good 'tater salad. In the end I ignored them, sort of.

Because nothing was SPEAKING to me, I was like FINE!!!!!!! I'll just make the potato salad that my mother makes. (Which is the weirdest sentence in the English language since my mother cooks once every decade.) BUT, I couldn't leave well enough alone,  and needed a signature addition, so I added pickled green beans cause of inspiration #1 and I roasted 1/2 the potatoes cause of inspiration #2. And, as always, as all the good bitches do, I added green onions to the top of the potato salad. As ALWAYS. People said it was good; they were probably just being nice.

To Heartichokes: Loving Springy 'Chokes

I've been obsessed with making artichokes. But I'm a pansy so far and haven't ventured into FRESH ones because what if I don't get the middle out completely (the hairy part that could choke/kill people)? So, I've been taking it slow. I made this pea artichoke salad side dish thingy for a Passover party.

I HATE raw red onions. So I soaked some of them in water and vinegar to both cut the grossness & add some pickling. I also sauteed some of them then threw in the artichokes added a little butter then drizzled lemon juice in the pan. I also blanched the peas then threw it all together with some salt and pepper. If it weren't for Passover I'd have added some feta. It was springy!

Then this guy. Well I just boiled the parmesan + arugula raviolis that I bought at Trader Joe's. Then, I threw that with sauteed garlic and artichokes & some melted butter. Topped it with parsley and parmesan and pepper, because this post is brought to you by the letter P!

To Eat Dinner @ Home: Caramelized Onion & Feta Frittata, Herb Biscuits, and a Salad

Weeknight meal: frittata, salad & biscuits. Also, lunch for the next day.

I love frittata! Because it's eggs, obviously. But also because it's so easy. Most importantly (?), it's an amazing word to pronounce. I do it like this in my head: "frrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeee- TA TA!" For most accurate depiction, please roll the R, hold the E's and make the T's really tingly, like your tongue is tap dancing. ANYWAY. Normally, I would be content eating the frittata (tonight's version was caramelized onion & feta) with a simple side salad. But since I've promised myself to stop fearing flour, I attempted herb yogurt biscuits. (Recipes below.)

One of the ideas behind the blog is to remember MEALS. Like, the whole thing. Not dishes. But the main, the side, the wine (if I'm drinking it that night). Because lots of blogs have components of meals but then you've got to figure out what goes with it. So here's all of it! One dinner when you've got an hour to spare.

Here's how it went.

To Love Salads: Citrus Spice Edition

spinach & arugula mix; pecans; clementines; spicy broccoli; paprika roasted peppers; parmesan cheese; dried cranberries; citrus vinaigrette.

On many of my working days, lunchtime is my favorite part of the day. (Aside from my current obsession breakfast oatmeal and the witching hour when it's time to go home.) ANYWAY. Last year, I killed it with salads and wraps. But, as I've mentioned, I can't remember what I put in them.

I have my own set of general tenets to follow when coming to a final decision on what to put in my salad. Often, I'll also consult a few blogs for some extra seasonal inspiration.

To find out key salad components, read more!