Three Mustard and Bacon Potato Salad

     Who doesn't like potato salad? COMMUNISTS AND BABY EATING FASCISTS, THAT'S WHO. Seriously? There's so many potato salad variants. I can see not liking one or two, but to turn up your nose at all of them would be an unforgivable crime. Especially if you turned your nose up at mine. We all know I produce nothing but pure gold here and if you didn't like something I made, you either screwed it up or are uncultured swine. All kidding aside (I wasn't kidding), this potato salad is dynamite. At least, that's The Wife's verdict. I will admit it is a tasty salad. You can't go wrong with a pound of bacon! The only thing you may find problematic is that it calls for another one of my recipes to make this. You need to have a batch of my Three Mustard Pepper Relish on hand. If you don't have it, or can't make it, I'm not sure what you can do. I imagine a mix of a sweet and spicy mustard and a spicy relish should be a fair (albeit weak) approximation. If you come up with a replacement for my relish, let me know. As always, notes are in blue.

Three Mustard and Bacon Potato Salad

Ingredients

• 4 pounds potatoes, cut into 1" cubes (pick any potato you want. We used russet. Red would be good. I wouldn't recommend sweet)
• 1 pound pepper bacon
• 3 stalks celery, chopped
• 1/2 large red onion, chopped
• 1/3 cup sour cream
• 2/3 cup Three Mustard Pepper Relish

Directions

1. Throw the potatoes into boiling water. Boil 7-10 minutes or until they are just starting to get soft (don't over cook them or they will disintegrate when you go to toss them later). Set aside to cool. 
2. In a pan, cook the bacon until crisp. Drain and crumble the bacon. (don't you dare throw away the grease. Drain it into a clean jar and you can pop it in the fridge for later use. DON'T put the hot jar right into the fridge unless you're a huge fan of cleaning broken glass.)
3. In a small bowl, mix the sour cream and mustard. 
4. Put potatoes in a large bowl. Add bacon and onion. Pour in the sour cream and mustard mix. Toss until all ingredients are incorporated (this gives a nice, thin coat over everything. If you like more dressing in your salad, feel free to add more. Just remember 2 parts mustard relish per 1 part sour cream)
5. Refrigerate at least an hour before serving

Good Times!

Kosher Dill Pickles

     First off, let me make it clear that these pickles are not truly Kosher. Our house would never pass a Kosher certification. The six pound pork shoulder in the freezer pretty much locks that one up. We don't even grow the veggies right. According to Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:19, we screwed up since we grew our cucumbers in a field with a bunch of other seeds. So, semantics (or Semetics "I'll be here all week! Try the veal and tip your servers! Don't forget the 9:30 show is nothing like the 6:30 show; you can't bring your kids to the 9:30 show!") aside, these are just some tasty pickles to nosh on as you see fit. Eat them from the jar, use them in a potato salad, or slap them on a hot dog (WITHOUT KETCHUP. Please, I'm begging you, don't put ketchup on a hot dog). As always, notes and changes are in blue. 

Kosher Dill Pickles
via Better Homes and Gardens Home Canning Cook Book

Ingredients

• 2-1/4 pounds 4-inch cucumbers (we just used whatever cucumbers we had on hand. No clue as to type. If they weren't 4 inches, we just cut them down to make sure they'd fit in a pint jar)
• Fresh dill heads (LOL WUT? No clue as to what they're asking for. I, for one, refuse to decapitate an innocent dill. We used a teaspoon of dill weed in each pint jar)
• Garlic cloves
• Hot red peppers (we used whole dehydrated cayenne)
• Pickling salt
• 4 cups cider vinegar

Directions

1. Wash cucumbers. Pack them in hot quart jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace (we derail almost immediately. One, we used pint jars. Two, we used full sized cucumbers, so we cut ours into spears, then shortened them as needed to get them in pint jars. We did, however, wash them. I think.)
2. To each quart, add 2 heads fresh dill, 1 clove garlic, 1 hot pepper and 1 tablespoon pickling salt
   (if you're doing it our way, you'll be adding to each pint, 1 teaspoon dill weed, 1 clove garlic, 1 dried cayenne and 1-1/2 teaspoons pickling salt)
3. In a medium saucepan, combine vinegar and 3 quarts of water. Bring to a boil.
4. Pour boiling liquid over cucumbers, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Adjust lids.
5. Process in boiling water bath (20 minutes for quarts, 15 for pints)
6. Yields will depend on how committed you are to violently jamming cucumbers into the jars.
7. As always, if you're not familiar with canning, go to the National Center for Home Food Preservation to avoid poisoning anyone.

Good times!

Sauerkraut and Dill Potato Salad

     Is there any side dish that screams "summer" more than the ubiquitous potato salad?  Probably, but for today we will say "no!" I love potato salad in all forms. American, German, Amish, Venusian. Just slap it on my plate and I'm good to go. This particular potato salad came about on the 4th of July. We didn't really have any side dishes for our grilled meats, so I decided to go with potato salad. We had potatoes. I considered making Dill Pickle Potato Salad, but then decided I needed to add sauerkraut. It just seemed like a good idea. It was. This is a rock solid potato salad that went great with brats and steaks. Give it a try and tell me what you think! Unless you think it sucks. Then I don't want to hear about it. As always, notes are in blue.

Sauerkraut and Dill Potato Salad

Ingredients

• 5 medium potatoes, washed and scrubbed, then cut into 1" cubes (peel them if you want. We didn't. As for potato type, we used plain old Idahos)
• 1 jar (24 ounces) jarred sauerkraut, drained
• 4 large green onions, chopped
• juice of 1 small lemon
• 2 teaspoons dill weed
• 4 tablespoons mayonnaise
• black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Boil potatoes in lightly salted water until easily pierced with a fork (don't overcook the potatoes, or they'll break up when you go to mix the salad. The Wife called the consistency we wanted, "not quite baked potato"). Allow to cool for a few minutes
2. In a large bowl, combine the potatoes with all the other ingredients. Mix gently to incorporate all the ingredients. Chill in the refrigerator at least 30 minutes.

Good times!

Dill Pickle Potato Salad

     Potato salad is one of those hit or miss side dishes. There's some really good potato salads out there. There are also some truly horrifying ones, too. Those are usually the hoity-toity pretentious recipes using "lightly threatened fingerling potatoes in a vinaigrette of distilled duck tears and a reduction of leprechaun tendons." That sort of shit doesn't fly around here. Give me a bunch of potatoes and mayo. How about some pickle relish? Great! Throw it in there. That's why I like this recipe. It was attributed to Roseanne Cash, so that automatically makes it good. Plus, it uses a boatload of dill pickles, which is always fun. Anyways, it's a great little recipe that will look great sitting next to a hot dog or hamburger. Or you could just stand at the counter and grimly eat it right out of the bowl. Whatever floats your boat. As always, any notes or changes are in blue.

Dill Pickle Potato Salad
via Bon Appetit 

Ingredients

• 3 pounds red-skinned potatoes, unpeeled, cut into 1-inch pieces (I will be the first to admit that I almost never make any effort to use the suggested potato. Whatever potato is on hand is what's getting used)
• 8 dill pickle spears, coarsely chopped (about 1 1/2 cups)
• 3 celery stalks, chopped (about 1 cup)
• 1 medium-size red onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
• 5 hard-boiled eggs, peeled, chopped (I'm going to say this is optional. I've made this recipe with eggs and without. I think I prefer it without the eggs)
• 3/4 cup mayonnaise (or Miracle Whip if you want to send the foodies into apoplectic fits. Apoplectic Fits. I used to play drums for them)
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard (I used Gulden's Spicy Brown Mustard. I think the Dijon can be a bit overpowering)
  

Directions

1. Cook potatoes in large pot of boiling salted water until tender, about 30 minutes. Drain; cool (you could always just be a dumbass like me and cut the potatoes while they're still too hot and just bitch a lot). 
2. Cut potatoes into 1-inch pieces and transfer to large bowl. Stir in pickles, celery, onion, eggs, mayonnaise, and mustard. Season potato salad to taste with salt and pepper. 
3. Cover and refrigerate. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour before serving (maybe it's just me, but I like my potato salad cold, not approaching room temperature. I'm funny about leaving mayo based foods sitting out for any length of time. It's probably my mother's fault. She has me convinced that if food is even close to going off, you'll get trichinosis of the liver if you eat it).

Good times!