Whole Hog - And a Whole Lot of Potato Salad

Last Friday's produce bin from Whole Hog Farms included the following:

green beans, kale, broccoli, cucumber, beets, grapefruit, carrots, potatoes

Meal planning for the week was difficult. I don't think it was the bin selections. It could be that I wasn't sure how our evenings were going to look.  There was the possibility of a change in my work schedule. There were after-work appointments, and we had hoped to get to the Service Canada office to renew our passports. Whatever the reason, it took me three attempts to get our meals sorted out, and even then things didn't quite work out as I had expected. Actually, the plan unravelled pretty early in the week. Hubby participated in Snow to Surf on Sunday. (Running. He did really well.) By the time we got home, neither of us felt like eating the meal I had planned. Still, we were able to prepare the following delicious meals. Items in bold are from the bin.

• Potato, Green Bean and Tuna Salad served on baby spinach. Avocado and tomato salad. Potatoes and green beans.
• Pasta with Squash Pesto. Spinach, tomato and cucumber salad. Cucumber.
• Cannellini and Kale Soup. The Soup Sisters Cookbook. Toast. Kale.
• Potato Curry. Rice. Cucumber and yogurt. Potatoes and cucumber.
• Beet Salad with Sheep's Cheese and Olives. Food 2.0. Beets and lettuce. (The lettuce came in this week's bin.)

The carrots were eaten throughout the week as snacks, the grapefruit rounded out a couple of breakfasts and most of the broccoli was used last week. Each meal, with the exception of the beet salad, made enough for dinner for two with leftovers for lunch the next day. In fact, the potato salad made enough for a couple of lunches and then some. 

Potato, Green Bean and Tuna Salad

Note: Skip the tuna if you want to go all veggie. We have it that way more often than not. Yummy either way.

Also, this recipe is my adaptation of several long-forgotten recipes. I think it was one of Jamie Oliver's shows that first brought mixing warm potatoes with vinaigrette dressing to my attention. I haven't made creamy, mayonnaise-based potato salad since.

Dressing:

2 small cloves garlic, minced (about 11/2 tsp)
1 tsp dijon mustard
juice of 1 lemon (3 tbsp)
5 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper

• Combine the above ingredients in a large bowl. Use the bowl you will be serving the salad in. That large. You'll want a bowl that can handle a bit of heat too, as you'll be adding hot ingredients next.

Salad:

6 (about 1 lb) potatoes, peeled if desired, and cut into 1 inch chunks
12 oz green beans, ends trimmed and snapped into bite-sized pieces
1-6 oz can tuna
1/4 cup chopped chives

• Steam the green beans until cooked to your liking. Cool and set aside. (I steamed the beans in the pot I later used for cooking potatoes. Hubby and I are the dishwashers here.)
• Boil the potatoes until tender.
• Drain the potatoes, and while they are still hot, mix with the dressing.
• Chill potato-dressing mix.
• Once the potatoes have cooled, add the green beans, tuna, and chives and mix well.
• Serve on greens of choice, or not, though more greens are always a good thing.

Fridge Foraging and Farmer's Market

I woke yesterday morning to the sound of the furnace running. Yes, the furnace. How wrong is that? It's July for crying out loud. It shouldn't be cold enough for the furnace to run, but it is. I truly didn't want to get out of bed after hearing that. After much stalling and snoozing I eventually pried myself out from under the covers and slogged off to the Farmer's Market.

I'm glad the market is open on Wednesdays again. There aren't as many vendors as on Saturday, but there aren't as many shoppers either. It gives me a chance to browse and chat a bit with our local growers. On Saturday I feel I have to dart into the booths, snag my items, pay and get the heck out of the way for the next person. Wednesday is much more relaxed, and though the vendors aren't as numerous, the selection is still wonderful. Look at all the beautiful stuff I bought:


I finally had to stop shopping, as I had run out of room in my bags. It's a good thing I had cleaned out the fridge on Tuesday. I barely managed to squeeze all my purchases in as it was.

Tuesday morning's fridge clean-out wasn't really a planned thing. It was more an act of desperation. I was getting ready for work, and I needed to pack something for lunch. I just started throwing things together until I had used up many of the leftovers and other odds-and-ends in the fridge. Oddly enough, I had fun packing my lunch. Generally I'm rushing around trying to get myself together. Packing my lunch is just one more chore to get through so I can get out the door. Fun doesn't enter into it, but the creativity involved in Tuesday's lunch prep pushed the act from mundane to something much more satisfying. I couldn't wait to eat my lunch.

Tuesday's Foraging-in-the-Fridge Experimental Lunch

Salad Course

1 generous tsp of home made bean dip
2 generous tsp of plain yogurt
2 smallish cooked potatoes, cubed
3 radishes
handful of sprouts
chopped cucumber (about 3/4 cup)
shredded lettuce (about 1/3 cup)
Salt and pepper

Mix bean dip and yogurt until smooth. Add all the other ingredients and toss until coated with bean dip dressing.

Smoothie Course

3 cups greens (spinach, beet greens, kale)
2 cups green tea
1 peach - peeled, sliced
1 cup strawberries

Blend greens and tea until smooth
Add peach and blend.
Add strawberries and blend.

Ok, I realize there's nothing original about potato salad and a smoothie. (Though I was rather pleased with my idea to mix bean dip and yogurt for a salad dressing.) It wasn't the uniqueness of the lunch that I found so satisfying, it was the spontaneous creativity involved in preparing it. That, and the fact that it kept the leftovers and the odds-and-ends in my fridge from going to waste. Not bad work for someone who generally isn't a morning person.