Inventive Potato Salad

I'm at that point in the month where the money is gone.  This month is a double whammy because there isn't any meat, potatoes or fresh produce left in the house!  Making meals at times like these is a challenge.

Sunday, Dear Daughter wanted to make a salad to help with dinner.  Nope.
How about a Potato Salad?  Sorry, no again!
She gave up!  I missed a wonderful opportunity to have HER ACTUALLY HELP!!

Since she suggested potato salad, I have been wanting to have some.  And I want it now!  Sometimes, patience is not my strong point.  So today I decided we WOULD HAVE IT!  And the seach began for "instant potato salad".  Then the modifications came because of what we didn't have.  This is the result.

End-of-the-Month Potato Salad

Instant potatoes- can add one or two cooked and chopped potatoes

Water

Egg – cooked, peeled & chopped

Celery or celery salt or celery powder

Garlic, roasted garlic or garlic salt

Onion or onion salt (green or purple adds color)

Pickles, dill or sweet, relish or self-chopped, or the pickle juice if that’s all you have

Mustard

Mayonnaise

Salt

Pepper

*Horseradish if you like it.

Amounts are left off so you can suit your tastes.

Heat the water for instant potatoes. Mix in potatoes until they are STIFF. You will be adding things that will make them more liquid, so you don’t want to start with it too loose.

Add the ingredients you would normally add to your potato salad in amounts that appeal to you and your family. Mix and taste to make sure you have a salad and not an “instant potato thing”. You should taste the additions and only taste the potatoes as a part of the flavor!

Chill and enjoy.

**This method is really good if you have someone with trouble chewing or swallowing chunks of potatoes.

***Adding mixed instant potatoes will also help to stretch a potato salad that needs to feed more people. Just check the taste.

To me this is tasting really good.  However, if you have family members that go by how the food LOOKS before they will even taste it, you may have to use the last potato in the house so that there are some "lumps".

El Shaddai

A long time ago, before CD's, I had a cassette tape that included the song "El Shaddai".  It wasn't sung by Amy Grant and I would love to be ableto remember who was singing it.  I want to share the song with you because of the powerful feelings it brings to me about God.

I am including the lyrics, so those of us who have a hard time understanding the words, can follow along and get the full benefit of the message in the song.



El Shaddai
by: Michael Card and John Thompson


El Shaddai, El Shaddai,
El-Elyon na Adonia,
Age to age You're still the same,
By the power of the name.
El Shaddai, El Shaddai,
Erkamka na Adonai,
We will praise and lift You high,
El Shaddai.

Through your love and through the ram,
You saved the son of Abraham;
Through the power of your hand,
Turned the sea into dry land.
To the outcast on her knees,
You were the God who really sees,
And by Your might,
You set Your children free.

El Shaddai, El Shaddai,
El-Elyon na Adonia,
Age to age You're still the same,
By the power of the name.
El Shaddai, El Shaddai,
Erkamka na Adonai,
We will praise and lift You high,
El Shaddai.

Through the years You've made it clear,
That the time of Christ was near,
Though the people couldn't see
What Messiah ought to be.
Though Your Word contained the plan,
They just could not understand
Your most awesome work was done
Through the frailty of Your Son.

El Shaddai, El Shaddai,
El-Elyon na Adonai,
Age to age You're still the same,
By the power of the name.
El Shaddai, El Shaddai,
Erkamka na Adonai,
I will praise and lift You high,
El Shaddai.

El Shaddai, El Shaddai,
El-Elyon na Adonai,
Age to age You're still the same,
By the power of the name.
El Shaddai, El Shaddai,
Erkamka na Adonai,
I will praise and lift You high,
El Shaddai.

Oxymoron

Famous realtive. Or is it Infamous...

On HBO there is a show called "United States of Tara" which is based on the life of one of my cousins. Here she is in an interview about the show which starts it's new season March 22. I don't have HBO, so I can't really say anything about the show since I haven't seen it.

It's a good habit!

If you know me very well, you know that I like to talk.  And talk.  And talk.  And . . .   Well, now I can say that it's a good thing if I am talking.

A group of psychologists from the University of Arizona and Washington University in St. Louis set out to find whether happy and unhappy people differ in the types of conversations they tend to have.  ...

Here's what the researchers found:

The happiest participants spent 25 percent less time alone and 70 percent more time talking than the unhappiest participants.

The happiest participants also had twice as many substantive conversations and one-third as much small talk as the unhappiest participants.  (LiveScience.com)

So those of you who don't talk much, might want to consider doing more of it.

Meat Cake

Make sure to check the UPDATE at the end of this post!

Have you ever looked at something in your refrigerator and not known what it was?  That is what Dear Hubby calls “Meat Cake”.   It usually smells and you aren’t sure if it’s worth it to keep the container or if you should just throw it out--food and all!

Then there are the times that there is a SMELL in the fridge and have to clean it out to find what the bad smell is.  That’s when you find all the meat cakes and old veggies that you forgot about.

We have been having one of those “SMELLAVENTURES”.

For the last 6 weeks, there has been a distinct and ugly odor whenever we opened the fridge door.

So I cleaned.

I threw out anything that MIGHT resemble a meat cake.

I cleaned, again.

And again!

And again!!

Baking soda did nothing for this smell. . .

I tried using water.

Then I tried vinegar.

Even opening the windows didn’t lessen the impact!

Then we took the back off to see if there was some kind of help there.   There were only dust bunnies inside by the motor—which I vacuumed out after we unplugged it.   But when we moved it, I was kind of thinking that there might be a dead something under it.    But no--it was so clean under there and just had a couple of dust bunnies.   At least I felt good about something.

Now we were at the point where the smell was invading ANTHING THAT WASN’T SEALED.   

Plastic wrap or foil didn’t cut it.

I mean sealed!!  

It plays with your head to bite into a wonderful leftover chocolate pie and find out it tastes like “That Smell”!

We started to dread it whenever someone opened the fridge door. It didn’t matter where you were in the apartment- you smelled it! And no room deodorizer disguised it. No candle helped lessen the impact. I was beginning to worry that someone would open that door when company was here and then I would see their faces turn green as they hurried to leave.

I began wondering how many Tupperware/Rubbermaid/Ziploc items I should buy so we could use the fridge and actually eat the food that was kept in it. I was figuring how many large sizes I would need and should I put the veggies in sealed bags or in something else.

Then one day I noticed the refrigerator pickles I made a while back. I wanted to taste them and see how they turned out. So I moved everything and brought out the gallon jar filled with cucumber spears that I had made into pickles.

That’s when it hit me.  The SMELL wasn’t in the fridge anymore--it was on the counter!   The gallon jar had not been sealed, just had a lid on that didn’t seal.   I asked Dear Hubby if he smelled THE SMELL.   Yes—what was it?   So I confessed!   It was my fault.   Poor guy—he doesn’t even like pickles!

After the pickles had been out for about 10 minutes—there was no more smell INSIDE.   Now I had to figure out what to do with the gallon jar.   So I tested one of the small pickles, it tasted fine.   I left the jar on the counter while I waited to see if I was going to be sick or not.  I felt fine.

After an hour, we couldn’t stand having the smell throughout the house all the time.   They were a little vinegary!   So I got two layers of plastic wrap and held that on with a rubber band before I put the lid back on.   Then with a sigh, I put it back in the fridge.




The plastic wrap didn’t help.   What was I going to do with them?    If I put them in a Tupperware/Rubbermaid container, the container would always smell that way.     It was time to make a decision.   I put it off and let the jar sit on the counter for a while.   The pictures will tell you what I finally did.

So far, I haven’t smelled them again!

So far!!!

UPDATE:  The smell came through the ziploc bag!  Does anyone need pickles TODAY?  Come get them.  NOW!!!

Moral of the story:  Do not use any extra vinegar in your refrigerator pickles!