The Daring Cooks Make Potato Salad. Really.

I couldn't believe it when I read the challenge for this month: potato salad, and healthy too! I don't have a problem with healthy, and actually get very excited about produce (in the words of a friend), but I don't eat potatoes more than a few times a year, and that includes fries. However, I have a lot of experience with them, as it seemed like we had them every night for dinner when I was a child. I pushed them around a lot, not caring for the texture. Now, I eat potatoes to be polite, such as when I am a dinner guest. The taste is fine, but it's that slightly grainy texture that gets me every time. Anyway, I'm sure if you have read this far that you actually like potatoes, so let's get past my potato inhibitions, shall we?

I didn't want to miss this month's challenge, as I had missed last month's (too greasy/meaty). So, I put my thinking cap on and tried to figure out when I did like potatoes and how I could incorporate those flavours into a potato salad. I like spicy curries with potato, as well as thinly sliced potatoes on pizza, and poutine, but that was the end of my list. I didn't see how I could put gravy and cheese curds on cold potatoes and make it work, so the poutine salad was out. Potato salad on a crust? Nope. Spicy? Yes, please. Rather than curry, I went with some Mexican ingredients to make a chipotle potato salad. It was good, but very spicy, as I doubled the chipotles from what you can see in the recipe below. As for healthy, I used half buttermilk and half mayonnaise to make a creamy dressing. Oh, and the most exciting part for me was that I liked it! I actually took the leftovers for lunch 2 days in a row. This is pretty earth-shattering, people. I think it was because I used tiny new potatoes and they were creamy, not grainy at all. So, Spud, you're okay. See you at Thanksgiving. Now to love eggplant...

Salad
1 pound tiny new potatoes
12 small radishes, sliced
2 small or one large poblano peppers, roasted, peeled seeded and diced
½ red onion, finely chopped
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro

1. Place potatoes in a pot of cold water with a generous amount of salt. Bring to the boil and cook for about 10 minutes, until tender. Drain and cool. Halve potatoes and place in a large bowl.
2. Add remaining ingredients and about ½ cup of dressing and toss well. Serve.

Chipotle Ranch Dressing

½ cup buttermilk

½ cup mayonnaise

1 chipotle chile in adobo and a teaspoon of the sauce

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

1 small clove garlic, mashed with a pinch of salt

¼ chopped cilantro

1. Combine everything but cilantro in a blender and puree until smooth. Add cilantro. Will keep for a few days in the refrigerator.

Blog-checking lines: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!

Roasted chickpeas and butternut squash with cilantro-tahini dressing

I think I could quite happily live on this dish all winter, and I don't even like leftovers much. It had great taste, texture, and temperature too, leaving me with nothing to dislike, which is saying a lot. I first saw the recipe on Smitten Kitchen, but it is originally from one of the Moro cookbooks. I made a few changes, by roasting the chickpeas and onions, and by pureeing all the dressing ingredients together. Why? Well, I usually soak and cook my own chickpeas, cause I'm a nerd that way, and because I don't always like the texture of canned, so I thought roasting them would firm them up. As for the onion, I figured if everything else was cooked, that I didn't want crunchy raw onion. And because everything is cooked I'm not calling this a salad. Why do people do that? Cauliflower and cheese sauce is the same idea and nobody calls that a salad. Oh, and the sauce! I have often bought tahini, but I can't remember ever finishing it. I usually throw it out when I move. Not sure why, but this container is going to go fast, on this recipe alone. Pureeing it with the cilantro and the roasted garlic and lots of lime juice and salt made it sing, and cut the sweetness of the squash in a very good way. Try this! Just don't call it salad.

Warm butternut squash and chickpeas with tahini-cilantro dressing

Adapted from The Moro Cookbook

Roasted:

about 2½ pounds of butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1" cubes

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed and patted dry (or 1½ cups of cooked and drained)

1 garlic clove, peeled and halved if large

½ teaspoon ground allspice (optional--I used it, but couldn't really taste it)

1 onion, finely chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 425℉. Toss all the ingredients above together on a baking sheet and cook for 25-40 minutes, till squash and onion are tender and touched with brown. Cool slightly.

Dressing:

¼ cup lemon juice

3 tablespoons tahini

2 tablespoons water, plus extra to thin, if needed

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium bunch of cilantro

1 clove garlic, fresh for a stronger flavour, or the roasted one from above for a mellower taste

Place cilantro in food processor and chop coarsely. Add the roasted garlic from the baking tray and process again. Add the remaining ingredients and puree. Taste and add salt--I liked this a bit salty. You should end up with a bright green and very flavourful sauce.

To serve, toss squash mixture with dressing, or serve it on the side so everyone can decide how much they'd like. Garnish with cilantro. I had lots of dressing left over and found it made a great dip for vegetables. 

Quick cheese and cilantro buns

I am still trying recipes from Warm Bread and Honey Cake, the same book I made the multilayered spice cake from. I was really excited about a nutmeg cake, especially since I had bought some nutmeg in the shell when I was in Montreal. I was a bit disappointed in the cake, so I think I'll save the rest of the nutmeg for custardy things where it can really shine. Hungry and undaunted, I dove back into the book to find something else to make, right that minute! These buns fit the bill, as I had all the ingredients on hand.

They really are quick to make, and so worth the few minutes you'll have to invest in making and baking them. The dough is really nice to work with, and the feel of it might remind you of the silky dough used for Mrs Vogel's Scherben, except these aren't deep-fried. Too bad, as the oil from the scherben is still lurking in the back of my fridge. Maybe next time I'll fry them...

Quick cheese and parsley buns  from Warm Bread and Honey Cake 
dough:
1⅔ cups all purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3½ ounces thick Greek yogurt (I drained some sheep's milk yogurt)
1 egg beaten (save 2 tablespoons for glaze)

filling:
4½ ounces feta cheese, crumbled
small handful chopped flat leaf parsley (I used at least half a big bunch of cilantro) chopped
freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400℉. Grease a baking sheet (I used parchment, and I didn't grease it).

Knead together all of the dough ingredients and set aside while you make the filling. For the filling, mix the feta and the chopped herbs. Divide the dough into 12* pieces and flatten or roll out one piece to a 4-inch circle. Try to get the edges thinner than the centre. I used a rolling pin, as the dough is not sticky, and it only took a minute.

Put 1 tablespoon of the filling in the centre and pleat and pinch the edges to seal into a ball. Don't worry too much about appearance, as this is the bottom of the bun. Just make sure it's well sealed. Place on the baking sheet and flatten slightly with the palm of your hand. Repeat with the remaining 11 pieces of dough and the filling.

Brush twice with the reserved egg and bake for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown.

I baked half of these and froze the other half. I took them out of the freezer when the oven was preheating, glazed and then baked them from frozen at a slightly lower temperature (375℉) and for 4-5 minutes longer, and they were just as nice. Next time I'll make a double batch and freeze more of them. These are perfect with soup for lunch.

*I somehow managed to get 11 buns from this. I'm not sure what's scarier: that I can't count to 12, or that I divided the dough into 11 equal pieces by eyeballing it.

See you on Tuesday with the Daring Bakers' reveal!