Perfect Potato and Tomato Salad by Marika

So this is my friend Marika's photo of her amazing potato salad found at http://ediblediaries.blogspot.com/2009/06/recipe-potato-salad-la-nicoise.html. Her photo is much better than mine which is in a crowd with two other salads I made one evening below, all posted somewhere here.  The dressing is very versatile and I will often double the recipe and save it for a quinoa or kamut salad.



You will need:


2 pounds of baby nugget potatoes
2 cups grape or cherry tomatoes
3/4 to 1 cup mixed olives
4 poached eggs (optional)
2 shallots, minced
2 tablespoons chopped chives





Save this dressing as a perfect go to for quinoa, rice, lentil, kamut salads. Keeps well in the fridge for a few weeks and the recipe is easy to double. If you don't have a food processor drizzle the oil slowly into the rest of the ingredients to blend the oil well with the vinegar.


Dressing:
1 tablespoon dijon mustard, grainy or smooth
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves
5 fresh basil leaves
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1/4 teaspoon salt
Pepper to taste

Servings: 4

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add potatoes and cook 10-15 minutes or until done.
Remove and drain in a colander. Put in a large salad bowl with tomatoes.
Add all dressing ingredients into a food processor. Blend well.
Pour dressing over warm potatoes and tomatoes. Plate and top with olives, chives and shallots.

Optional: Place poached egg on top so yolk acts like a gooey warm sauce on top of potatoes.

Grilled Vegetables a la BBQ

This is what I love to make especially in the summer and who's to stop you from doing it in the winter.  Grilled veggies are just about the easiest thing to make because you can transform them into so many different meals such as sandwiches, lasagna, pasta salad, wheat berry salad, marinade them in olive oil and balsamic and add them to any meal.  I could go on. There are several other recipes posted where I use these veggies with other meals.

Its easy peasy-

Slice long vegetables horizontally
red peppers into big long chunks that won't fall through your BBQ
Eggplant
Zucchini
Asparagus
Mushrooms
Add whatever veggies you like

Drizzle a bit of olive oil, minced garlic if you like,

Throw them on the grill till they are a nice color.  The peppers will burn a little but don't let them get too black- carcinagens are not good.

You can plate them with chunks of roasted garlic, black olives and drizzle more olive oil and balsamic too.  SOOOOOO GOOOD and so easy.