Summertime Favourites: Sour Cream Potato Salad

Sour Cream Potato Salad, (c) 2014 Brenda Leyland

Does potato salad feature in your favourite summertime celebrations?

I l-o-v-e potato salad. For me, it is one of those top summertime favourite foods. Come the first really warm day in the Springtime and we begin to hanker after potato salad. Fortunately, I also enjoy making it... chopping the potatoes, boiling the eggs, putting together the dressing and pouring it over the still warm potatoes.

I was amazed (in doing a little Google search) to see just how often potato salad plays a star role in childhood summer memories and family gatherings like picnics in the park or camping by the lake. My mom used to make a creamy dilled potato salad that I loved. Still do. It was often paired with her picnic baked chicken that often starred at our Sunday dinners at summer camp meeting.

Another recipe, Sour Cream Potato Salad, became an instant favourite many years later when a former work colleague, now dear friend, brought it once for a luncheon at the office. I was instantly smitten. I begged Sharon for the recipe which I have treasured...and used often...ever since.  

I think it's the dressing that makes it so special for me. I love the contrast of the sweet-tart from the vinegar-mustard-sugar combo, and the sour cream mixed with the mayo makes it light and creamy. Y-u-m!

 

Sour Cream Potato Salad

 Salad Dressing

1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayonnaise
3 Tbsp white vinegar
3 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp prepared yellow mustard
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp salt (I use way less these days)
1/2 tsp black pepper

Mix ingredients together.

4 hard boiled eggs

Separate cooked yolks from the whites. Mash yolks and add to the dressing. Chop the whites and add to the cooked potatoes, cucumbers and green onions.

3/4 cup diced cucumber
1/4 cup chopped green onions
6 cups diced, cooked potatoes (a teeny bit firm to the bite, so they aren't mushy)

The secret of great flavour in this salad is to dice the potatoes raw and then cook in salted water. I use red potatoes. Drain. Add salad dressing while the potatoes are still warm; they absorb the flavour from the dressing. Serves 10 - 12 (or less if you like it a lot!)

Original graphics by Chris Ritter for BuzzFeed

  

Here's wishing you lots of summertime bliss with the best people!

Hugs,
Brenda
xox

The Beautiful Matters

'Polish Spirit' Clematis -- photo from my garden in a previous summer

Deborah at The Beautiful Matters recently shared a posting that, upon my reading of it, made me feel almost as if I were listening to my own heartbeat... for her message so eloquently echo my own thoughts on the matter of beauty and its importance in our up-side-down world.

If you've ever wondered if it's frivolous to desire to live a beautiful life in a world fraught with so much pain and suffering, then I hope you will take a moment to read Deborah's post Why the Beautiful Matters. She opens her heart to us as she shares her thoughts about beauty being vital to our well-being both as individuals and in our society.

"In every (woman's) heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty." ~ Christopher Morley

 Wishing you glimpses of heaven in unexpected places,

It's A Little Letter

Do you still treat your family and friends to handwritten letters sent in the mail? Or, do you find yourself using emails and texts more to stay in touch?

I love writing letters on pretty stationery. It has long been a favourite pastime. But, I admit I don't do it as much as I used to -- emails make it so easy to stay in touch. And so quick. A little while ago I sent an e-note to a dear friend to say hi and fill her in on my day and she's probably reading it as we speak. I like that immediacy.

Now... I hope you don't mind, but I've decided to offer that same note to you here...rather than write my bit news all over again.  

Dear Leila,

How the days flit by and I do think of you in the midst of these lovely summer days; alas, it's oft at times when it's not possible to stop and tell you so.

So a pause right now to say hello and hope you are well and that you've had a lovely day. It's been so beautiful of late. First, it was all the spring flowering trees. Then the peonies burst their beauty upon us. Today the mock orange opened cascades of pretty petals with their soft, sweet scent. We're glad it blooms right next to the deck, so we get front seat viewing.

We spent Canada Day yesterday quietly in our own backyard with little fanfare -- we enjoyed it nonetheless. We hung our red and white flag from our mailbox out front and it fluttered away in the breezes. Our bird friends keep us entertained all day... young ones learning how to fend for themselves and brand new robins making me giggle because they looked like they just woke up...downy feathers sticking out from underneath new and smooth ones like wispy baby hair.

I finished up the short article I was invited to write for a small writing magazine about the influence L.M. Montgomery and Anne of Green Gables have had on my life. (As you know...it's been a huge influence). It's scheduled to be published in August. I'll share later. Working on this piece made me want to dig out all my books by and about LMM and re-read them. It's been a while. Perhaps I'll do a summer read-a-thon and immerse myself in the world LMM and PEI. I even ordered a DVD of the 1985 award-winning movie of Anne of Green Gables (as I didn't own a copy only the video from long ago). I'm hoping to 'borrow' Jean's big screen one afternoon and watch the movie with her at her house. Maybe we should make it a date and have you join us... (nothin' like inviting myself and others to her house for tea...haha).

There... I hear pots rattling. Rick's making supper and so I should go show up and see if he needs help. Of course it doesn't hurt to just write a few more words and not show up 'too' soon. (hehe)

On that note, I've been summoned to a BBQ salmon feast. So I'll bid you a sweet goodbye. Enjoy your evening.

Hugs,
Brenda
oxo

 

Look What Opened Today...

If I say the word 'peony' to you, what is the first thought or picture that pops into your head?

Are you a little girl in your mom's flower garden? Or your grandmother's? Are you burying your nose in one of these old-fashioned blossoms hoping you don't sniff in an ant by mistake? Relishing that heady scent that you can't quite describe? What about feasting your eyes on the colourful bouquets sitting regally atop a laced covered table at a wedding or bridal shower?

For me, I just have to catch the faintest whiff on a breeze and I'm a young girl off with her mom (and younger sisters) to a bridal shower. I loved bridal showers as a girl. The excitement of watching the bride-to-be opening her gifts from well wishers, the laced covered dining table festively decorated with pretty china and vases of peonies just picked from the garden (whoever heard of using flower shops out in the country in the early 1960's).  I suppose wedding showers were held at other times of the year too, but in my mind's eye, all bridal showers were held in June when peonies were at their peak.

Read more : http://www.ehow.com/info_8301965_do-peonies-smell-like.html

Many gardeners grow peonies for sentimental reasons. These old-fashioned flowers may remind them of their childhood or a grandmother's garden. Peonies are lovely in the garden or as cut flowers indoors. Their fragrance varies, depending on the cultivar, as well as the time of day. Peonies are most fragrant in the morning before their volatile oils dissipate with the heat of the day.

Read more : http://www.ehow.com/info_8301965_do-peonies-smell-like.html

So... did you know that peonies are most fragrant in the morning before their volatile oils dissipate with the heat of the day? I don't think I knew that (before I Googled), but I'm going to check it out in the morning. This beauty was picked late afternoon when I saw its petals unfurled. The fragrance is filling the house. One single blossom. I'm Swooning!

On a different vein, my Siberian irises were begging for a pose of their own, so below I give you this pair of lovelies ... as they coyly blend into the oil painting I used as a background for the photo. Aren't they exquisite?

Truly, my glimpse of heaven in an unexpected moment.  For early this morning when we arrived home from work at eight a.m., the peonies were still in bud form. The warm sunshine surely coached them into showing off today.

"... and they open --- pools of lace, white and pink... "

 from Mary Oliver's Peonies poem

 Wishing you a a beautiful evening,

 

Photo source:  (c) Brenda Leyland, 2014

A Glimpse of Paradise

"I couldn't live where there were no trees--something vital in me would starve."

~ L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams

I'm staring out into the backyard at the bubble-gum pink blossoms that have turned the 'Toba' Hawthorne into a cascade of summer delight.

I could well imagine a row of these along either side of some ambling country road to soon feel I'd been transported straight into Anne's world of Green Gables where she swooned with delight as she and Matthew passed under bowers of pink cherry blossoms.

Surely this is a glimpse of paradise...

Beguiled by the bounty of beauty right under my very nose I take moments out of my otherwise full days of writing and needful tasks...  to pause and just while away a few moments to let it all soak into my soul. For I believe beauty has something of a healing balm in it. And in our up-side-down world where woes oft carry the day's news, we surely need our souls restored and refreshed.   

 

"And the Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden (which means delight) ... And out of the ground He made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight or to be desired..." from Genesis 2

Wishing you glimpses of heaven in unexpected places...

Hugs,
Brenda
xox