Taking my own advice about staying cool in the summer, my children and I were out in the garden early this morning.  Our objective was to dig up some potatoes and pick whatever else was ready.  Isaac, who is two years old, loves to dig for potatoes.  He squeals with delight with every one he finds.  He thinks that he is on an Easter egg hunt or that he is finding treasure in the dirt.  Reactions like Isaac’s always bring a smile to my face.

The pick of the garden

We planted new potatoes this year.  They are great boiled in their reddish-pink jackets and served with butter.  I have also found that they make the best potato salad.  I made some for Jake’s birthday last Friday and got rave reviews from our guests.  The only thing different in my recipe from my prior dishes of potato salad was the kind of potatoes I used.  I usually use plain ole’ russet potatoes.  Now that it is summer time and people enjoy potato salad with their barbecue, I recommend substituting with new potatoes.

We also picked a bell pepper, several carrots, an onion, some Swiss chard, and two different types of lettuce.  Now that we have it all picked, I just have to decide what I am making for dinner.  Eating seasonally when you have vegetable garden is a must to keep from wasting your food and time.  It also ensures that the vegetables that your family consumes are fresh and full of vitamins and minerals.

A Swiss chard fan

In the past, I wrote an article about Swiss chard.  If you aren’t familiar with this vegetable, then you can read all about it here.  Anyway, we really wanted the chard to make big leaves with large stalks so that we could use the stalks like celery.  I could not believe how big the chard grew.  You can pick a leaf and fan yourself all day long in the summer heat.

One of my pet peeves is that my kids are always asking me, “What’s for dinner?  What’s for lunch? What’s for breakfast?”  It is as if they only live to eat.  They have never starved or gone without a meal because I forgot to feed them.  Even so, I do have to decide daily what to prepare for dinner.  Due to the bountiful harvest this morning, I have made my decision.  We will be having pork roast from our farm-raised hog.  I will also be preparing my potato salad with new potatoes, bell pepper, onion, a Swiss chard stalk, and boiled farm-raised eggs.  In addition we will also have a green salad made with the leaf lettuce and Romaine lettuce with carrot slices.

There that was easy.  The pick of the garden chose the menu.  To make my potato salad, here is the recipe.

Potato Salad

5 lbs of new potatoes
3 eggs, hard-boiled
medium onion, chopped
1/2 bell pepper, chopped
3 stalks of celery, chopped
2 tbsp sweet relish
1 jar of pimentos, drained and diced
2 tbsp yellow mustard
1/2 cup mayonnaise
sea salt and black pepper
1 tbsp freshly chopped parsley

Boil the potatoes until tender.  The big potatoes can be cut into smaller sections in order to cook faster.  Drain the potatoes.  Peel about half of the potatoes and dice all of them into chunks.  Put in very large bowl.  Boil and peel three eggs.  Dice and add to the potatoes.  Wash and chop up the bell pepper and celery.  Chop up the onion as well.  Add to the bowl.  Now add the sweet pickle relish.  Dill relish will also work, but my family prefers the sweet.  Drain and add the pimentos.  Combine the vegetables with the mustard and mayonnaise until everything is coated and creamy.  Season to taste.  Serve cold.

Tags: bell pepper, fresh vegetables, lettuce, new potatoes, onion, picking garden, potato salad, swiss chard

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 at 7:11 am and is filed under Gardening, Homesteading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.