Yummy Potato Salad!

Yesterday I mentioned the Chipotle Potato Salad that I made last night and I thought I'd share the recipe.  I went to a cooking class at Southern Seasons one night and we had a delicious meal.  They give you the recipes to take home in a take-out.  I tried to recreate it last night with some success.  Of course I didn't take any pictures.  This isn't my recipe, it is from the class. (c) Sandra Gutierrez

Chipotle Potato Salad  (I halved it)

6 Large Yukon Gold potatoes

2 Chipotle Peppers in adobo sauce

2 teaspoons adobo sauce

1 cup finely minced yellow onion

1 cup finely minced celery

1/4 cup finely minced Italian parsley

1/4 cup finely minced cilantro

1 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup sour cream (can use lowfat, but not non-fat)

1/3 to 1/2 cup of live juice (or to taste)

1/4 cup minced chives

2 garlic cloves, very finely minced

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Paprika

Note:  For the Chipotle Peppers and adobo sauce, I bought 1 can and put it in the food processor and pureed it.  I then just used 2 teaspoons (for 1/2 recipe).  For the rest, I dropped them into teaspoon fulls on wax paper and froze them.  I'll put them into a plastic bag and thaw them out for next time.

Wash and scrub the potatoes and put them in a large pot with cold water.  Boil potatoes until they are fork tender (25-30 minutes) and make sure that they keep their shape.  Drain the potatoes, peel them and cut them into cubes in a large bowl.  Stir in Chipotles and adobo sauce, onions, celery, parsley and cilantro.  In another bowl, mix mayo, sour cream, lime juice, chives, garlic, salt and pepper.  Toss dressing with potatoes and chill salad for at least 1hr before serving.  Season with the paprika.

Let me know if you try it.  I hope you like it!

Weekend Recap & Recipes

It was a great weekend.  I had hoped to post this weekend but didn't get around to it.

Friday - It was the Friday before a holiday so my manager let us out at 11:30.  It was great to not have to stay late and to be able to have the afternoon to myself.  I went to lunch with a friend, which we so very, very rarely do just the 2 of us and we sat there for 1.5hrs.  It was a lot of fun.  I came home to these from my awesome husband.  (Sorry for the iPhone picture)

It was a great start to the weekend.  We picked up some paint for a project this week (I'll blog about it when I'm done), stopped by the mall and then grabbed some dinner.  All in all it was great to just spend the evening together.

Saturday - Since KC went out-of-town to play Ultimate Frisbee for the day, I had the whole day to myself.  I ran errands, had lunch with another friend and then started baking.  I love banana bread and save all of my rotten bananas in the freezer to make some banana bread.  The bananas started to pile up so I make 4 batches of banana bread, some for Easter and some to share with friends.  I also made an ice cream cake for Easter and it was delicious.  (Recipes below)  I love Funfetti cake and at the store the other day, there was a box of Funfetti cookie mix.  Yum, Yum!  I definitely made some of those for Sunday and they were delicious (despite the fact that I'm not a big fan of frosted cookies)!

Sunday - Sunday was Easter.  It's so hard not to spend the day with family.  I know it's been about 6 years that we've been away from them but that doesn't make it any easier.  We decided to go to 11:30 mass so we could work out beforehand.  It was packed.  We found a parking spot but ended up in the Fellow ship hall because the church was full already when we got there at 11:10.  It was a beautiful service, I just love the hymns that were sung.  After groceries, we lounged around and I made some pretzel salad before we headed over to eat with some friends.  We had a nice meal and everything was delicious.  Afterward, we watched Opening Night, which I will say was a little disappointing, but hey it's only the first game of the season.

I hope you all had a wonderful and joyous Easter weekend.

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Weekend Recipes

Pretzel Salad
1 cup crushed pretzels
1 cup sugar (divided)
8 oz. cream cheese
8 oz.  Cool Whip
1 stick of butter (melted)

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Mix pretzels, 1/2 cup of sugar and melted butter in a bowl.  Press into a 9x13" pan.  Bake for 7 minutes. Allow to cool.
• Whip cream cheese, Cool Whip and 1/2 cup of sugar in a bowl.
• Break pretzel mixture into pieces and fold into cream cheese, Cool Whip mixture and enjoy!

Ice Cream Cake
1 vanilla ice cream (softened)
1 chocolate ice cream (softened)
1 tube chocolate chip cookie dough
Cool Whip
Caramel and/or Fudge topping
Candy toppings

I use a springform pan for this so it was easy to add/remove things and then cut when ready to serve

• Bake 1/2 of the cookie mixture in the pan and then remove from pan to cool
• Bake 2nd 1/2 of the cookie mixture and leave in pan
• Put 1 layer of vanilla ice cream over the cookie, freeze 30 minutes
• Put the other cookie (that was removed from the pan) on top of the ice cream
• Put 1 layer of chocolate ice cream on the second cookie, freeze 30 minutes
• Put a layer of Cool Whip on top, freeze 30 minutes
• Garnish top with Caramel/Fudge toppings and candy
• Freeze until about 10 minutes before serving, remove edge of spring form pan and leave on counter to soften

You could do this with many different types of ice cream.  I think it would be good to put a layer of fudge or caramel on top of the ice cream or cookie as well