The swimming pool days are upon us. Does anything cut through the heat like a jump in the pool? It's time to throw some food on the grill and eat outside in our bathing suits.
What's that? You don't have a pool, you say? Well then find someone who does, and bring a couple of salads over. It's the perfect trade-off.
This week we made Martha's
All-American Potato Salad and
Grilled-Corn and Tomato Salad.
We learned a
couple of things from Martha's All-American Potato Salad recipe. One
was to boil the potatoes with their skins on in a large pot of
water. When we peeled the still-hot potatoes they had a nice texture
and flavor and had not absorbed too much water. Martha tosses the warm
diced potatoes with cider vinegar.
Also,
for the dressing this recipe calls for one cup of mayonnaise, celery
seed, dry mustard, salt and pepper in a large bowl. But the ingenious
part, new to us anyway, is to thin the mixture with a couple of
tablespoons of hot water and whisk before adding to the potatoes and
other chopped veggies. We've always just globbed more mayonnaise in to
the mix to ensure it was moist enough but thinning with a little hot
water worked really well. Definitely a tip we will use again.
The
second salad, the Grilled-Corn and Tomato Salad, provided a lot of bang
for the buck - easy to throw together but big on flavor. You take three
ears of corn and remove the husks. Then, heat a grill to high, place
corn on grill until lightly browned and charred. (You could also do
this in the oven by placing the corn under the broiler and making sure
to turn occasionally).
With a sharp knife you cut the corn of the
cob into a bowl. Add diced tomato (we used little sugar plum tomatoes
in place of the beefsteak tomato Martha calls for), diced orange bell
pepper, 2 scallions, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. The
grilled corn is sweet and smoky and compliments the other foods off the
grill. We served ours with a little barbecued chicken.
Bonus,
both of the salads will only get better with a little time to chill in
the refrigerator, so get yourself back to the pool.
