Daring Cooks June 2011: Potato Salad

Jami Sorrento was our June Daring Cooks hostess and she chose to challenge us to celebrate the humble spud by making a delicious and healthy potato salad. The Daring Cooks Potato Salad Challenge was sponsored by the nice people at the United States Potato Board, who awarded prizes to the top 3 most creative and healthy potato salads. A medium-size (5.3 ounce) potato has 110 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium and includes nearly half your daily value of vitamin C and has more potassium than a banana!

I love potato salad!! I make it all the time, this Smoked Salmon and Watercress Potato Salad is one of my staple recipes but I have never put it on the blog! It is so tasty and it also makes a great pasta salad. I don't like the heaviness of a just mayonnaise potato salad so I add yoghurt, sour cream or creme fraiche to it and this makes it a bit lighter and healthier too!



Smoked Salmon and Watercress Potato Salad
(Serves 1)

2 pieces of smoked salmon
handful of watercress
3 potatoes
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tbsp yoghurt or sour cream or creme fraiche
squeeze lemon juice
1/2 tbsp chives, chopped
salt and pepper

Chop up the smoked salmon into small slices.



Chop each potato into about 4 depending on the size of your potato and boil for about 15-20 mins. Leave to cool.



Whilst the potatoes are cooling, mix together the mayonnaise, yoghurt, lemon juice and salt and pepper.



When the potatoes are cool, add them to the creamy mixture, add the watercress, smoked salmon and chives, stir together and serve.

The Garden

There hasn't been much cooking happening at my house recently or at least nothing new. I started my new job and that's been taking up a lot of my time and I am also finishing off my college course. Also at this time of year I am mostly to be found in the garden, especially with the beautiful weather we've been having recently. Although if someone can send some rain it would be much appreciated! I thought I would show you what the veg bits of my garden look like at the moment so you can see where all my free time has been going.

This is the herb garden bit outside my back door. I have garden mint, oregano, variegated sage, thyme, normal sage, chives, garlic chives, black peppermint, curly parsley, flat leaf parsley, garlic chives, Greek basil and just out of shot some dill.



This is the loganberry plant that comes over from my neighbour, she has also just given me some seedlings to plant my side so I will hopefully have even more next year. It has so many berries on it this year.



These are the potato plants. I have two different sorts of potatoes on the go, one I know is pink fir apple, the other I'm not sure about but the plants are huge and flowering, I grow them in tarpaulin sacks. They are earlies so they should be ready soon!



This is the larger of the two collections of pots! Here were have four different types of tomatoes, plum, round, cherry and yellow cherry, peppers, rosemary and tarragon, aubergines, rainbow chard, sorrel, rocket, watercress and stir fry mix leaf as well as some sweet peas at the back.



Next is the courgette/squash bed. I have two long green courgette plants and one round yellow one, which doesn't look too happy at the moment. The two squashes on the end are spaghetti squash.



Next is the mixed veg bed. This has broad beans, french beans, onions, spring onions, fennel, pak choi, carrots and two sorts of lettuce.



Lastly come the strawberries, again two different sorts, there are also pepper plants, spinach and tomatillo not yet through.