Category Archives: scratch cooking

Eggs, Food, Pia, scratch cooking, Uncategorized

My Mom’s Potato Salad

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When my mom was a young mother in the 50’s, she spent a lot of time cooking and making up recipes. One of her meals was a potato salad that was a little different from the common one of the time, and a steak marinade.

The potato salad? At a grill out, I made a huge batch of it. One of the guests who tried it then brought *every new guest* over to it telling them to eat it, because it was so good.

I don’t think it’s *that* good, but it is extremely tasty. It’s a kind of bland plain 50’s potato salad (no pickles, no celery, no mustard, yes eggs) with Bacon added.

Y’see, my mom had married a kid of German descent, and her Mother in Law made the traditional hot potato salad that has bacon in it.  My mom looked at it and said ‘that would be good in plain potato salad’. And it is. I mean, how could it not be? So, it’s a plain, fatty potato salad with bacon. And eggs. Yeah. You eat it because it’s fatty. Mmmmmmm, fat….

All summer long, she’d make her steak and this potato salad, and even though she died a few years ago, I get to feel like we are home again when I make them.


I recently was asked if I’d be willing to share my mom’s steak marinade, and since I was making it for today anyway, I figured why not. And then I can’t picture the steak without this salad, so you have both! And like that woman who had her fudge recipe on her tombstone for all to enjoy, I know my mom would love to live on in other people’s cooking. Even if they change it to fit their tastes, like she changed recipes to fit her. So go ahead, add the pickle and celery and whatever else you think would work. I have actually in the past *drained the bacon grease* into the salad as well.

You did good, mom. <3 you and miss you.

Go here for Pia’s Steak.

For this you need

I use my Instant Pot and do my potatoes and eggs at the same time. Makes it harder to get salt in the potatoes, but harder to mess up.

4 cups of potatoes- salted, boiled, cooled, diced

2 hard boiled eggs- boiled, peeled, and diced (I do both of these in the instant pot. These were small so they got 7 minutes. I then peeled then, diced them and salted them.

1 finely chopped onion (about 1 cup of onion.)

1 tsp salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

5 sliced cooked diced bacon (I used three extra thick slices and drained them this time)

~1 cup mayo (add more if you like it gooey. I do.)

And the proof this dates to the 1950’s, after all the above is mixed well, paprika! It’s not just to decorate it. A nice hot paprika adds nice flavor to it.

And there you have it.

Pia’s steak, her potato salad and sauteed spinach. Dinner was silent because no one wanted to stop eating…
Food, health, money saving, scratch cooking

Foods to Take

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We do a lot of event over the course of the year. And a huge amount of them have delicious food offereingsin the form of food stands or food trucks. And that’s delicious. And convenient.

Some of the time.

Some of the time, you wait on line for half an hour for somthing that is ok at best,  you want something healthy and nothing is available, or you simply don’t want to spend money on a meal for everyone in your family.

What we generally do is put aside money for a treat (not nothing that we can make at home easily!) and bring our own food.

Now, bologna on Wonder  may be the stuff your ‘pack a lunch’ memories are founded on, chewing on the salty fluff while looking at food trucks is probably going to make you less satisfied.

My guys are going to UBCon this weekend. They are packing meals (as our son said ‘mom, you didn’t see the food prices!) So I will run a series of blog posts on the foods we’re making to make them feel just as spoiled as if they got special foods from the trucks.

And then they will spend the money they saved on a game or two.  🙂 Last year it was Affliction. I wonder what it will be this year.

 

desserts, health, scratch cooking, Uncategorized

Brown sugar cornstarch pudding.

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Well, if you know me, and I think you do by now, you know I am going to use that brown sugar from yesterday and make something today. The other day, Van, our son, had his tooth out, and I am making him brown sugar cornstarch pudding. It is more pale than a store bought one, because there is no coloring added, natural or otherwise. But it is a mild, clean, butterscotch flavored pudding.

Starting with 1/4 cup of butter in a double boiler. This was my grandfather’s. It has served our family well. Anyway, if you don’t have a double boiler, put a heatproof bowl over summering water.

Add 1/2 cup brown sugar and a generous pinch of salt, and mix until it is all smooth.

Meanwhile, I added a tsp of vanilla to 1 cup of milk and 3 tablespoons of cornstarch to 1/2 cup milk in a small jar with a lid.

Mix the vanilla milk with the butter sugar until smooth, and let warm up tightly cap the cornstarch milk and shake it like heck.

When the milk is warm, add the cornstarch milk while stirring. Cook until it thickens, about 5 minutes, stirring often, then pour into a bowl to chill. If you don’t want to have a skin form, top with plastic wrap. We love skin here, so no plastic for us!