Frequently, a potato salad either features an oil-and-vinegar dressing or a mayonnaise-based dressing. My recipe actually uses both: the lighter dressing goes onto the warm potatoes, infusing them with flavor as they cool, and then follows with the mayonnaise dressing enriched with eggs and chives. We cut our mayo with sour cream for a lighter, tarter finish but you can also use Greek-style yogurt if you prefer.

Incidentally, this recipe is from my comic book cookbook, What to Feed Your Raiding Party, which is currently available for pre-order.

Redskin Potato Salad

Ingredients:

Method:

1. Place the diced potatoes (about 1″ cubes) in a large pot with enough water to cover by about an inch. Bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes or until potatoes pierce easily with a fork.

2. Meanwhile, combine the dressing ingredients in a bowl and whisk together.

3. Drain the cooked potatoes, place in a large bowl and pour the prepared dressing over the cooked potato pieces. Toss or stir together the two bits so that each piece of potato has a chance to be covered in dressing, being careful not to mash the potatoes too much, and place, covered, in the fridge until cool.

4. Add the eggs, celery, onion, peppers and chives to the cooled, dressed potatoes.

5. Combine the mayonnaise and sour cream in a small bowl and then add to the rest of the ingredients, stirring to mix everything together.

6. Add salt and pepper, if needed, and chill until it’s time to eat (both you and the potato salad).

Serves 8

Calories per serving: 203 | Carbohydrates: 27 g | Protein 5 g | Fats 9 g

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To dress the warm potatoes, most people would just whisk the ingredients together. For the longest time, though, I’ve used a shaker bottle from Tupperware that has graduated sides (measure-markings) and a little wheel towards the top that helps aerate whatever you’re shaking. It worked fine, but the pop-on plastic (both for the top and the pour-spout cover) aren’t always the easiest to manage if you don’t get them lined up just right.

So when OXO gave me the opportunity to try out their new Good Grips Salad Dressing Shaker, I was thrilled to see how it compared.

The top half screws onto the bottom half and creates a great seal–no worries of flinging the dressing around with this one–and the pour spout is easily worked with a single finger; no prying! Plus, it’s pretty to look at, and a well-designed gadget always wins my heart.

With sides marked with cup measurements as well as ounces and milliliters, I’m tempted to use this for mixing cocktails, too!

OXO was kind enough to send me two of these little gems, one for me and one to share! So if you’d like to win your own Salad Dressing Shaker, leave a comment below! You’ve got until Sunday, May 20, 2012, at 5pm EST to enter the giveaway. Since this is part of my usual post-share with Circle of Food, comments left on this post in either location will be included. The winner will be announced on Monday, May 21, 2012.

This giveaway is open to residents of the Unites States.

FTC Disclaimer: I was provided product from OXO to review and share. All opinions expressed are my own.

I’ll be back with our normally scheduled foodie fun next week.

Wish me luck!

I signed up as a team captain, without first asking if anyone else was interested in helping.

I reached out to the farmer’s market near my home to hold it there (and after a week of “pestering” got a firm yes).

I asked my foodie friends if anyone would be willing to bake for the sale.

And, on Saturday, WE raised $216 for Share our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign.

Of the 4 folks who offered to bake, 3 came through. Several friends came out on Sunday to help man the table/keep us company. We had 110 “units” when we started and only brought 19 home. My fears of what to do with the leftovers were greatly unneeded.

(Especially since most of the leftovers were my double chocolate muffins–they’re great with vanilla ice cream!)

What shocked me, though, was how much use the Donations jar got!

We put out a mason jar with a simple sitcker-dot label on it and Todd “primed” it with $1. Before long it was half full, and not just with singles. I don’t know that we ever really mentioned it by name, it just sat in the middle of the table and people fed it! A third of the funds came directly from that jar.

Pretty awesome, huh?

One of the surprise hits of the day were my Spinach Puffs. True, I figured with a venue like the farmer’s market, something savory might have a better chance than not, but people really responded well to them in general. Because they are so super simple and so wonderful for parties, here’s the recipe:

Spinach Puffs

10 oz frozen spinach, thawed
1/2 cup diced onion
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1/3 cup blue cheese salad dressing
2 Tbsp butter, melted
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1 package corn bread mix

Squeeze the liquid out of the spinach and combine it with the rest of the ingredients, mixing well. Chill the batter at least 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 350° F and line a couple of cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Drop by rounded spoonful (I like to use a cookie scoop) onto the prepared cookie sheets, leaving 2 inches between each. Bake 10-12 minutes or until the edges of each puff are golden brown.

They’re great room temperature or warmed, can be frozen for long storage. And a even more delicious dipped in a bit of spicy brown mustard.

This has been more on my mind thanks to planning for the Great American Bake Sale, Helper Monkey Style! in 2 weeks. I try to stay conscious of my guests food preferences when I plan a party menu, but when baking for strangers? The word that comes to mind is “vigilance.”

We want happy, healthy bake sale customers on the 28th, and one way we can ensure that is by carefully labeling our baked goodies with the basic ingredient list, highlighting the eight most common food allergens:

• Milk
• Eggs
• Peanuts
• Tree nuts (such as almonds, cashews, walnuts)
• Fish (such as bass, cod, flounder)
• Shellfish (such as crab, lobster, shrimp)
• Soy
• Wheat

(list via The Mayo Clinic)

But what’s the difference between an allergy, an intolerance and a sensitivity?

To qualify as an allergy, the body’s reaction is violent: hives, swelling, system shutdown. Your system declares all-out war on a substance and your body is the battlefield. Consuming products you know you’re allergic to can be life-threatening; even when the allergic response is mild, continued exposure can bring rapid escalation of the systems and the outcome.

Intolerance, on the other hand, is the body’s inability to process an enzyme in the food, creating unfortunate side-effects. Lactose intolerance means your body doesn’t produce enough lactase, for instance. To combat it we either take a pill that gives our body the needed lactase, consume dairy products that have been specially treated to combat the lack of lactase, or use a dairy substitute.   Being sensitive to a certain ingredient or additive means you experience certain unfortunate consequences when you eat or drink whatever it is, but it’s unlikely to kill you.

Sensitivity, though, is a middle ground. Each person can be more or less sensitive to a food, and wish to avoid it to improve their quality of life. For instance, I have a friend who went gluten-free to help her migraines and it helped, for a while at least. Another friend avoids gluten because she feels fuzzy-headed and sluggish if she eats it, and likes to be clear-headed. MSG sensitivity causes lots of headaches to folks in the US (pun intended). Like intolerance, though, it’s not going to kill you if you eat something you’re sensitive to, you just might feel pretty bad afterwards.

Your average bake sale is going to be full of wheat, eggs, and milk, with a good chance of peanuts or tree nuts as well. Somehow I don’t see a high probability of fish and shellfish being on our table, but it’s all up to the volunteers and what they choose to bake!

My to-bake list included mini pound cakes (perfect with some farmer’s market strawberries, mmm!), double chocolate muffins and I think I’m going to make up a big batch of spinach puffs just to have something different available.

For the past week Todd and I have been trying out recipes from Jessica Harlan & Kelley Sparwasser’s Quinoa Cuisine cookbook. Last night, as we dined on pizzas made with quinoa pizza crusts and red quinoa tamales, we joked that it was like being on a week-long Iron Chef, hold the shark-fin ice cream.

Cookbooks that focus on a single ingredient tend to fall into 2 types: the really awesome and the easily forgettable. Fortunately, Quinoa Cuisine falls into the really awesome camp.

First Some Background

If you’ve never tried quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) before, it looks something like couscous but it closer to rice and other grains in nutrients, though really it’s the seed of a plant in the spinach and beet family. Quinoa was revered by the ancient Incans as the “mother crop” and it boasts double the protein and fiber of white rice and 10 times the calcium. The “cost,” of course, is a few more calories per serving (222 compared to white rice’s 169, per cup), but being such a filling food, it’s 50 calories I’m willing to spend. It’s also one of the few plant-foods that counts as a complete protein (containing all 8 essential amino acids).

And if that’s not enough, white quinoa (it also comes in red and black), takes only 10 minutes or so of simmering and 5 minutes of sitting to be ready-to-go. Compare that with white or, especially, brown rice!

We’d tried quinoa as a rice-substitute in the past, but that’s all we ever did with it. This book uses not only the quinoa in it’s usual form but also quinoa flour and quinoa flakes (similar to quick oatmeal, only more delicate).

What About the Recipes?

I had a merry old time reading through the book and flagging all the recipes that I wanted to try. Just on the first pass I flagged 33 of the 150 recipes, and managed to fit 12 of them into this past week of dinners (it helps that Easter dinner was this weekend, I could slip in some delectable desserts that we normally wouldn’t try in a “normal” week).

After having to head to 4 stores before tracking down the quinoa flour and flakes (thank you, Earth Fare!), we started our quinoa odyssey with Pumpkin Waffles. The quinoa flour has a distinct scent—earthy is the best I can come up with at the moment—and it doesn’t 100% go away when the dish is finished. The waffles were dense (not a bad thing) and could have used more spice than the recipe called for, but were quite tasty when the usual butter and syrup were applied.

Another night we tried something from the Vegetarian chapter: Dal [lentils] with Kale Quinoa. We used it as a side-dish but it could have easily stood on it’s own and the wilted kale mixed into the white quinoa was a fun textural and taste change.

The Horseradish and Sour Cream-Crusted Tilapia was the first dish we had using the quinoa flakes: they were sprinkled over the top of the sour cream mixture before going into the oven. They neither browned nor turned crunchy, the way bread crumbs would have, but instead almost melted into the creamy coating and bulked up what could have been a too-slick topping. The Creamed Spinach (with white quinoa) was a fun change from the usual recipe, though mine turned out a little on the soupy side. Cutting the broth down will be an easy fix the next time we make it.

Since quinoa is gluten-free (you may have seen quinoa pasta or other baked goods in the specialty section of your local grocery store), making Quinoa Pizza Dough meant also adding some wheat flour to get the right consistency and lift. While the quinoa flour was supposed to add a slight nuttiness to the crust, we didn’t really notice a difference, but the finished Grilled Pizza with Prosciutto, Grilled Peaches, and Arugula didn’t have us complaining at all. The Red Quinoa Tamales were very good, too. My corn husks must have been a bit on the small side, though, as I had 18 when finished, instead of the 12 the recipe cited as the yeild. Still, not a bad thing to have more of, right?

The Real Test: My Family

I didn’t tell my family that pretty much everything I was making for Easter supper included quinoa. Mom knew that the salad (Black Bean, Corn and Quinoa Salad with Lime Dressing) had quinoa in it, but she didn’t know that the appetizers did, too, (Quinoa, Bacon, and Blue Cheese Fritters with Horseradish-Yogurt Sauce) and all 3 desserts, as well!

My family isn’t necessarily picky, but when it comes to holiday dinners they aren’t exactly adventurous, either. Much to my surprise, the quinoa salad was well-received and a lively discussion on the merits of quinoa ensued.

The real test, though, were the desserts. We made the Triple Chocolate Bundt Cake, the Lemon-Glazed Pound Cake and the Quinoa Carrot Cake, all with 100% quinoa flour.

The pound cake was the least favorite—it was dense (as pound cakes usually are, but a bit more so) and the lemon wasn’t quite strong enough to overcome the slightly off taste of the quinoa flour. The chocolate cake was incredibly light and moist, in comparison, and really carried itself well—Todd could taste the difference but, to me, it just seemed like a dark chocolate cake (which is what it was).

The Quinoa Carrot Cake was the favorite of everyone, though. Oh, man, this was one excellent carrot cake. Now, true, the cream cheese butter cream frosting certainly helped (her version called for maple flavoring but I had hazelnut in the cabinet and used that, instead), but the cake, itself, was super-moist and super-flavorful and, yes, you could taste the difference from the quinoa flour but it really worked for this recipe.

Over all, we thoroughly enjoyed our week feasting on quinoa in it’s various forms and are looking forward to trying out some of the other recipes in the book. If you’ve never tried quinoa, yourself, give it a whirl.

FCC Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of Quinoa Cuisine by the publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

April 2nd is National Peanut Butter & Jelly Day

I can’t think of a pb&j without remembering the scene from St. Elmos Fire. Mare Winningham’s character, Wendy, has finally stood up for herself, moved out, and is living her life on her own terms.

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night to make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich… and ya know, it was my kitchen, it was my refrigerator, it was my apartment… and it was the BEST peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I have had in my entire life.

Love that scene.

And I’m willing to bet that we’ve all had a PB&J moment like that in our lives, food-related or not.

As humble as the lowly peanut butter and jelly sandwich may be, every now and then it’s nice to go back to the basic staple of the childhood lunch. Whether for nostalgia or just because nothing else sounds good at the moment, a pb&j on white bread can really hit the spot.

But what about jazzing up the standard pb&j? Sure, you could be “daring” and opt for something other than grape jelly (I’m partial to strawberry, myself) or really go wild with the smooth vs crunchy decisions, but why not try something really different? Maybe a fancy bread, a wrap or flatbread? Substitute the peanut butter for almond butter, cashew butter or sunflower seed butter. Mix a little honey or syrup into your peanut butter and go jelly-less. Or skip the bread entirely and alternate spoon-fulls of peanut butter and jelly straight from the jars.

What, like I’m the only one who does that?

I Want Candy

That song has been stuck in my head for 2 weeks and I’m hoping, now that the Springtime Tallahassee parade is over, that I’ll get a respite from it.

Saturday was the first time I’d “marched” in Springtime Tallahassee since 1994. As part of the Lofty Pursuits Community Marching Band we walked the hilly parade route playing the fitting tune, as Lofty is not only a local toy and game shop, but our very own old-fashioned soda fountain–complete with jerks–and classic candy shop.

It’s a pretty sweet gig, you know. The pressure is low, the music is fun, the uniform is a t-shirt and the funny hat of your choice (I whipped up a fabric candy headband for this parade), and we get “paid” in ice cream! And on Saturday I think the stroll down Monroe Street helped us work off the ice cream calories well before we’d consumed them!

Great American Bake Sale

Share Our Strength has a goal, through it’s No Kid Hungry Campaign, to end childhood hunger in America by 2015. That’s a pretty tall order and they’ll need help to do it–who better but food bloggers to pitch in?!

On Saturday, April 28th, bloggers across the country will be hosting their own Great American Bake Sale to help further the work Share Our Strength is doing to “[connect] children with the nutritious food they need to lead healthy, active lives” through “federal nutrition programs,… community organizations fighting hunger, [teaching] families how to cook healthy, affordable meals and [building] public-private partnerships to end childhood hunger, at the state and city level.”

Team Helper Monkey! will be hosting the Tallahassee bake sale at a location to be named as soon as I nail down the particulars. We’ll be accepting donations throughout the month of April online as well as hosting a physical bake sale on the 28th. If you’re in the Tallahassee area and want to join us online, contribute baked goods or take a shift on the actual day of the sale, please contact me at randomactscomics[at]gmail[dot]com.

And if you’re not in Tallahassee, check out the Great American Bake Sale map to find a sale in your area or sign up to start one yourself!

Okay, sure, the offical National PIE Day is January 23, but on March 14, geeks everywhere celebrate our own PI Day.

(And for the numerically disinclined, Π = 3.14159, so when the digital calender reads 3.14, we see Pi!)

This happens every year, of course, but what usually happens is I always remember too late to do something for it. Not only did I make it a point to have it on my calendar at the beginning of the year, but I scheduled it enough in advance that not only will we have pie for dessert, tonight, but I baked the pie early enough to blog it!

Our pie is a double-crust mincemeat (it was already in the pantry, I planned ahead, but only so much) baked in a false-bottom tart pan for easy serving.

And, yes, my pie? Are square

Are you doing anything special for Pi Day?

PS: Our friends at Lofty Pursuits would like to remind you that tomorrow, March 15, is National Egg Cream day. Never had one? Find your nearest soda fountain and give one a whirl!

As you might have guessed, the theme, flavor and activity of choice for the meetup was cupcakes.

We had at least 60 decorated cupcakes by day's end.

Our hostess is quite the cake decorator, herself, and I was a happy helper monkey busting out my old supplies and my somewhat-rusty piping skills to make my own creations as well as help others get the hang of things with theirs.

It almost makes me want to teach for Wilton again.

Except for the whole time thing. Or, rather, the lack thereof.

But for a day’s outing, it was a nice return to my old creative stomping grounds.

To host your own cupcake afternoon, here’s the skinny on how our hostess made it so very enjoyable.

1. Start with your supplies.

Steff had plenty of decorating tools for folks to use and the ones I brought made a good back-up when the frosting started flying.

Tables are required since the cakes have to sit somewhere; she put a cover on her pool table as a second table to allow plenty of table-space for everyone.

The table laden with supplies and inspiration, just waiting for us to start.

2. Gather the troops and get them to bring things.

Several people brought un-iced cupcakes and a few people brought cookies. Others brought candies and toppings to be used in decorating.

Of course, meetups can’t live by sugar alone! There was also plenty of savory snacking to be had to fend off the sugar coma pure icing would have otherwise caused.

Savory foods laid out for snacking

This meant that we didn’t actually start decorating for a while, instead we had the usual nosh and nose-around-people’s-lives until the last folks had arrived.

3. Give ‘em their marching orders and let the wild cupcaking begin!

A few words of guidance from Steff and it was pretty much catch-as-catch can. The cupcakes were moved around to make room for people to work, tools were grabbed and the icing started to flow.

Piping fishnet stockings onto a cookie.

One enterprising attendee made peanut butter cookie people (and his own cutter/mold, too) and decided to make both the girls and the boys. Alas, when presented with such a start, there was nothing else to do but dress the boobalicious peanut butter girl in some fishnets and lingerie.

Then someone wanted some guidance building a cupcake pooch from one of the books available for inspiration. She did such an amazing job–I was so proud.

An excellent student and her creation

4. After about 4 hours, send everyone home with as many cupcakes as they can carry!

Oh, there were so many cupcakes. In addition to the 60 or so that were decorated, there were easily 3 dozen that left as naked as they arrived. They were divvied up and everyone who wanted had a little something extra to bring home.

Tip: Disposable carry-out containers are available at most warehouse and restaurant supply stores. Having some extras on hand for these sorts of things never hurts.

An afternoon spent cupcaking, cooking, or crafting with friends is a fantastic way to pass a day. And if you don’t have a group of like-minded individuals to do that with, already, check out MeetUp.com and find some new ones.

To see the rest of my photos from the day, check out my Google+ album.

Ages ago I had a coworker who would complain, good-naturedly, about his wife’s habit of going to 4 different stores to do her grocery shopping. He’d even chosen the phrase “the tuna run” because they drove to a particular store simply because that store was having a fabulous sale on tuna fish.

It’s no surprise he wondered if the gas they used going from store to store cost more than what she saved with these obstacle course-like trips.

And that was back when gas was still under $2 a gallon!

Oh, for those days…

But I digress. The point was, she was willing to go that extra mile to save her pennies, and many people do far more these days.

Back when I was first exposed to the Extreme Couponing phenomenon my biggest complaint was and still is that coupons are frequently for highly-processed convenience foods. Sure, we could use the occasional household goods coupons, but it certainly wasn’t worth our while when the majority of what we buy is fresh or frozen produce (without the instant sauces), meats that have been no more processed that a trip through the butcher’s table, and basic staples.

Now, though, I’ve come across something that might just fill the gap.

On Pinterest (it’s not just for decorating ideas) I noticed a friends pin on price-matching.

For those who aren’t instantly familiar, some stores (of which Wal-Mart is a shining example) will match the price of another store. While they may loose a small amount of the mark-up represented in the shelf price, it’s far better than having you go to another store and them losing out on the sale completely.

Apparently, this extends to groceries, too. Including produce and meat.

And all it takes to take advantage of this tactic, is a little homework.

Many grocery chains have a weekly sales flyer. Most of them also have this flyer available online so you don’t even have to subscribe to a mailing list or swing by every Tuesday or so when the ads come out. And since Wal-Mart, at least, doesn’t require you to have the advertisement on you to claim the lower price, all you need is the knowledge.

I shop at Wal-Mart on my weeks of kitchen duty. It’s not my first choice, honestly, as I prefer to aesthetic quality of shopping at Publix, but the receipts bear witness to the fact that I spend less at Wal-Mart. So, unless I need a specialty ingredient or am just swinging-in on my way home from work, Wal-Mart it is.

Across town, however, we have a Save-a-Lot and a Harvey’s, both known for deep discounts and pretty good sales. I’m not about to trek down there on the weekends, though, so price matching through their online ads allows me the savings without having to go to more than one store. I didn’t even check Winn-Dixie, come to think of it.

Something else I learned by doing my homework was that a lot of these store-sites have a “shopping list” feature where you can click on the items in the ad or drag them over and it puts your choices on a printable list. Just because you don’t need the ad, doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt to have the prices at your fingertips–and only the ones that you need.

So this week was my test, just to see if it was really as easy as it seemed.

Turned out, of my shopping list this week there was only 1 thing I needed that I could price match, but all I did was speak up as the cashier was about to scan it and they changed the price with no problem.

The girl behind me asked “That really works?”

Apparently it does.

I didn’t cut my food bill in half this week–truth be told I saved a whopping $2–but the point is that it IS possible, it’s a lot less cumbersome than coupons, and the homework is a far sight simpler than the other way.

Has anyone else tried this? What were your experiences with it?

Two years ago we attended and left with, pun intended, a bad taste in our mouth. Did things improve in the interim?

I think they did.

I attended my first Chef’s Sampler in 1997–pre-Culinary School–and looking back over that year’s program I see the highlights were the lavash at a now-defunct local Italian place, the char-grilled octopus from Angelo’s, and the bacon-wrapped shrimp from local steak-house favorite, Marie Livingston’s.

Back then, more than half of the attending restaurants were strictly local affairs.

That last visit, in 2010, seemed to be weighted much more in favor of chains, and was also a more casual affair with scads of kids running around.

I’m happy to report that after skipping a year, the Chef’s Sampler is back on our list of fun, foodie events once more.

With just about half of the 40 vendors present representing the strictly-local market (down from 1997′s total of 58), I’m happy to see the chains haven’t totally outnumbered the locals-only establishments, and this year was a return to the event I remember from my earlier, easier to impress days. They still had the live band I bemoaned from last time (live music in that space means you can’t hear yourself think, much less digest!), but there were more people a little dressed up and far fewer kids running amok.

Since Graphateria was a sponsor, this year, Todd and I were able to attend the VIP Reception hosted by Shula’s 347 Grill and Hotel Duval. They had the fabulous foresight to provide us with a cocktail party must have: plates with built in cup-holders and the stemware to go in them. (And for those not at the VIP Reception, they were selling the sets elsewhere along the grazing route.)

We knew not a soul at the Reception, but close quarters make new friends in no time and a lovely couple with, wouldn’t you know it, some acquaintances in common shared our little cocktail table for the rest of the pre-party.

Overall the food was what we’ve come to expect from Tallahassee’s restaurants: good quality and a lot of common elements. Everyone and their cousin has their own version of Spinach-Artichoke Dip and any place that had any ties to southern cuisine has a shrimp and grits offering they like to trot out for these things. One surprisingly nice touch was the presence of smoothies and snow balls available in a couple different locations. You might think a syrupy snow-ball might be overkill in the middle of small-plate heaven, but it acted as an amazing palate cleanser.

Some stand-outs of the night were the Fried Chicken Soup from Andrew’s 228/Andrew’s Bar and Grill,

the sushi from Masa,

and Jim and Milt’s mix of pulled beef and pork

But, by far, we saved the best for last–accidentally. We got to start the grazing about 30 minutes before the event officially opened (again, thanks to that VIP early entry) and some places were still getting set-up. On what was our beginning route, one of the local food truck’s that we’ve not had a chance to try, Mobi, were in that boat and we made the point of looking for them on our way out.

What you’re looking at, here, is Barbecue Pork Rangoon over Siracha cole slaw. Folks, even after all the rich food we’d eaten (and the 3 glasses of red wine that went with them), the flavor of this stuffed wanton were amazing. The richness of the pork cut by the cream cheese inside a very well-fried (crispy, but not greasy or heavy) wanton skin were amazing. On any other day I’d love a plate of these for supper.

Which means I’ll have to track them down at one of the Food Truck Thursday events and hope they’re serving it that night.

See the full photo gallery in my Chef’s Sampler 2012 Flickr Set.