German Potato Salad

Regular potato salad is gross and that amount of mayonnaise is known to the State of California to lower your IQ. No thanks! Intelligent people are forced to find an alternative path to potato salad glory and, luckily, the Germans have laid it all out for us. Instead of mayonnaise, you use bacon. Brilliant!

Here's what you need:

6-8 potatoes depending how hungry you are
1 large onion
3 stalks of celery
1/4 cup vinegar
1/4 cup water

2 tbsp sugar
salt, pepper and dill

I used red potatoes for this guy. Usually you use some sort of waxy potato like red or Yukon gold but if you only have russets, go nuts and have fun. They work just fine. First step is to cover the potatoes with water and bring to a boil. Just leave the skins on you will peel them of later.

You need to boil them about twenty or twenty-five minutes. When they are done they will be tender, slide of the fork a when you poke them and they will have split skins like this:

Drain the water and let them sit for a few minutes until they are cool enough to handle and peel off the skins. They should come right off if you cooked them long enough. Don't worry about a piece or two of skin on there. Builds character.

Then you chop 'em up into potato salad sized bits:

While they are boiling, you will have a chance to chop up the onions and celery. Good times.

You will also want to fry up six strips of bacon in a big pan. This is going to be the same pan you make the potato salad in ultimately so make sure it's got enough space to fit the potatoes in. Put the bacon in the pan, cold and put over medium high heat. Starting off gold helps keep the bacon from curling.

Cook it until it is browned to your liking and chop it into bits:

Oh yeah. That looks nice. Do your best not to eat the bacon. You will eat some but people will get mad at you if you eat it all. Really mad. People love bacon.

Leave the heat on medium and reserve two tablespoons of bacon grease. Drop the potato bits from earlier into the pan and add a quarter cup each water and vinegar, along w/ sugar and allow to simmer for about five minutes to reduce a bit. Salt and pepper to taste and add some dill. I'd imagine I don't use more than about a teaspoon or so of dill. I like it w/ just a hint. Some people add a bit of flower to thicken the dressing but I find it thickens just fine w/ the starch from the potatoes. Serve on plates w/ some sausage or roast pork and enjoy!

If you like mayonnaise or are otherwise unfit for public office, let us know about it in the comments!

Bacon Potato Soup

Potatoes and bacon are some of the most fun foods available to most unlicensed persons. Combine them and you always come up w/ a bowl full of wonderful. Or, at least you do when you make this fun potato soup.

Here's what you need:
8  potatoes
8 strips of bacon
1 large onion
~20 oz chicken stock
1 cup milk
salt and pepper

First thing you want to do is start frying up the bacon. I just chuck them right in the pot I'm making the soup and turn the heat up to high.

 

I don't worry about making sure they don't stick together or lay perfect flat or anything like that. You just cut them up into bits later. They are done when they look about like this:

While the bacon is cooking chop up eight potatoes and an onion. I chop the potatoes into inconsistently sized chunks. The small bits dissolve and make a rich, thick soup while the large bits remain intact and add variety and texture.

Remove the bacon and chop into wee bits. Try to eat less than 90% of it during this process. Drain all but about two tablespoons of the rendered bacon grease from the pot and save for later use. Throw the chunks of potato in the pot under high heat. You want to get them browned a little. Don't worry about cooking through.

Pour in your stock now, enough to just cover the potatoes. A little bit of water to top off doesn't hurt.

This is a recipe where I feel the quality of the stock matters. I used some (my last, sadly) I made from turkeys that I smoked and that really emphasized the bacon. Most people don't have that laying around but do at least try to use homemade.

Put this on high heat until it boils and reduce to a simmer. Cook about twenty to thirty minutes until all the potatoes are soft and the stock is nice and thick. I normally leave the lid off for part of to make sure the soup is nice and thick but leave it off too long and you'll end up w/ overcooked mashed potatoes. Add about a cup of milk. You can use cream too but I don't think that adds much too this already very rich soup.

Add salt and pepper to taste and there you have it, bacon potato soup. There are endless variations on this, I kept it simple for the sake of this recipes. Try substituting some other root vegetables in for the potatoes. Parsley root is an especially good one and adds a real nice spicy flavor. Beets give it a wonderful purple color. Let us know how your experiments turn out in the comments section.

Mashed Rutabagas w/ Bacon and Butter

What could be more fun than a rutabagas? They're covered in wax!

Yeah! Rutabagas taste like a cross between turnips and cauliflower and can be used to make a nice alternative to mashed potatoes, especially when you add bacon. You will need:

3 large rutabegas
3-5 strips of bacon
2 tbsp of butter
splash of milk
salt, pepper

First things first, strip the wax off the rutabagas, peel and cut into large chunks and cover w/ water in a pot.

Cover and bring put this business on a stove at high heat. Once it reaches a rolling boil, reduce temperature and cook until tender, this takes fifteen minutes or so. Test w/ a fork perodically. It should go in easily and then the rutabaga will slide right off.

In the meantime, cook up your bacon nice and crispy, reserving all fat. Once the rutabagas are soft, drain and mash w/ a potato masher. Add the bacon along w/ the bacon grease and butter then add salt and pepper to taste. I like to add a splash of milk to lighten the texture a bit but that's optional. This goes along well w/ roasted meats just like mashed potatoes.