Italian Potato Salad

Posted on August 31, 2018 by Our Growing Paynes

Before I get to the Italian Potato Salad I have to say I am very excited that I’ve opened up my Etsy shop! I’ve been working for months on researching what to do and getting my photos together. I’m starting off with greeting cards but I’ll be adding enlargements and such as I go along. It is call CreationsByOGP, for some reason Etsy doesn’t like spaces!

If you have a chance, please check it out at CreationsByOGP.

As we’re still battling a fierce heatwave with crazy humidity, dinners need to be easy to put together because standing over a hot stove isn’t my idea of fun in the summer. The farmer’s market had new potatoes so I decided to make an Italian Potato salad.

Technique for Italian Potato Salad:

I prepped the dressing first so it was ready.

Mix 2 parts olive oil with one part lemon juice. Add a healthy handful of fresh thyme and season with sea salt and pepper. Whisk the ingredients well and set aside. Next wash the potatoes and roast them at 425F/220C until they are cooked through and the skins are a bit crispy. Take 4-6 rashers of streaky bacon and cook in a skillet until they are done to the way you like them. We like them slightly crispy but not cooked too hard.

Dice the bacon and set aside. Once the potatoes are cooked, slice the larger ones in half as you want them bite size.

Toss in a large bowl with the dressing and bacon. Add fresh basil, tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. Grate fresh parmesan to finish.

For a bit of variation you can also add grilled chicken or grilled fish. I have to say though, I’m ready for cooler weather so I can do some baking and such. Hopefully it’s right round the corner.

Italian Potato Salad

A delicious twist on potato salad with fresh basil and tomatoes.

Course Main Course

Cuisine Italian

Keyword Italian Potato Salad

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 45 minutes

Servings 6 people

Author Our Growing Paynes

Ingredients

Dressing

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp fresh thyme
pinch sea salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

Salad

1 lb new potatoes 400g
4-6 rashers streaky bacon
1/2 cup fresh basil, torn to small pieces
1-2 fresh tomatoes, diced
1 cup small mozzarella balls
1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

Whisk the olive oil and lemon juice together. Add the thyme, sea salt and pepper. Mix well. Set aside.
Preheat the oven to 425F/220C. Roast the potatoes until the skins are crispy. Cook the bacon until they are slightly crispy. Cut up the bacon and slice any new potatoes that are more than bite sized. Toss all the ingredients together and serve.

Creamy Lemon Bacon Chicken Pasta

Posted on May 24, 2018 by Our Growing Paynes

It was a rite of passage this past weekend for our daughter with the high school prom. She’s been to friends proms in the past but this was the first for her high school. I have to say, proms have come a long way since I last had to worry about prom. It’s much more inclusive and more often than not, groups of students go as friends rather than missing out because a date couldn’t be found. Way better!

My daughter had a few friends over to get ready before her date showed up. I did my first ever updo. It came out ok, phew! It was lovely to see that all the girls dressed in elegant dresses, no hoochie mamas. Some of the dresses I’ve seen in the past few years leave little to the imagination. Thankfully that trend wasn’t to prevalent this time round.

Unfortunately the weather was very rainy so we just did photos round the house. The weather did bring in some cooler weather which called for comfort food! I saw a recipe calling for bacon and mushroom in a cream sauce. That sparked an idea. Lemon and grilled chicken would be a great addition.

I kept the marinade for the chicken very simple. With a ratio of about 2:1 olive oil to lemon juice, whisk those together with sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste. Add the chicken and marinate for a couple of hours.

When it’s time to cook up the dinner, grill the chicken and cook up the pasta. Cut into small squares, 3-4 rashers of streaky bacon. Start cooking the bacon in a large skillet. Slice a few mushrooms and finely chop 3-5 cloves of garlic. Sauté the ingredients with the bacon. Add a handful of fresh thyme.

When the bacon is nearly cooked add 1/2 cup/4oz of chicken stock and a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice. You want this to be really lemony at this point so the brightness isn’t lost in the cream and pasta. Bring this to a simmer then add a 1/3 cup/3oz of heavy cream. Cook on low until the chicken and pasta are done cooking.

Slice the chicken and add that and the pasta to the skillet and stir well. Right before serving add a bunch of arugula or spinach and let wilt.

Serve and grate fresh parmesan cheese over the dish.

Comfort food with the lightness of lemon, great for a cool spring night.

Spicy Summer Grilling

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Our Growing Paynes

Unlike last year, we aren’t dealing with dusty drought conditions so our garden has taken off and going like gangbusters. Except the parsnips. We planted that twice and not a sausage. Not one seed sprouted. But given that this is the only failure we are in great shape for the most local shopping of all, just outside our door.

By the time autumn comes, I’ll be tired of salads but I do enjoy the quick summer meals with fresh veg. For this meal I sautéed swiss chard from our garden in lemon juice and olive oil. I also roasted potatoes as they needed to be used up.

I think one of my favourite ingredients is garlic. And it works really well with spicy dishes.

In a bowl big enough to hold the chicken thighs add about 1/3 cup of olive oil or peanut oil and a 1/4 cup of lemon juice. Finely chop 3-4 cloves of garlic and add to the bowl. Here is where you get a bit free style. Because everyone’s taste is different when it comes to spice you want to add sriracha sauce until you find the balance you want. We like it spicy so I added a lot. Make sure you do adjust the lemon juice as needed so you don’t drown out that flavour.

Season the chicken with sea salt and pepper then add it to the marinade.

The longer you marinade the stronger the flavour will be when cooked. You can do this quickly but the flavour will be much more subtle.

Grill on medium heat until the chicken is cooked through. If it is a bone in chicken keep in mind that the meat will take longer to cook.

This would work with any sautéed veg or a salad. Thank goodness for the grill, I’d be lost without it!

Rosemary Garlic Pork

Posted on February 2, 2015 by Our Growing Paynes

Apparently we missed one hell of a game last night. We don’t have cable any more so I started the day checking out the ads from the Superbowl. I’m guessing the game was way better than the ads. I made the mistake yesterday of going to the grocery store to pick up a few things. It was mobbed. Not only was the “big” game last night but we are also now in the middle of yet another big snow storm. So there was game shopping on top of the panic shopping people do before a storm. This storm didn’t shift to the east this time so we’ll be getting a lot of snow today.

My husband lucked out with the travel and was able to come home safely. I had a good time with the kids last week but it’s great to have him home with us. I was struck the other day how much our kids are growing up. After taking them out for a light meal we drove back and bad music was playing on the radio. Our daughter decided that we needed to listen to some real music. So she put on Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and she and I belted out the song. Slightly to our son’s dismay! She took us through the 80’s and we ended with the Cupid Shuffle dancing in the kitchen. Then we topped it off watching Master Chef Junior. Those kids are incredible cooks. We are just blown away that an 8 year old can do restaurant quality dishes and an 11 year old did up a branzino. It’s insane.

To welcome home my husband I decided to make a pork loin with garlic and rosemary. I found this recipe from Daily Dish Magazine to use as an inspiration.

Coarsely chop the rosemary and garlic. This recipe takes a lot of garlic which is fabulous. I used almost a whole bulb of garlic. Place in a bag and add about 3/4 cup of dry white wine, 1/2 a cup of olive oil, and a few squeezes of lemon juice. Season the pork loin with sea salt and pepper and marinate for at least an hour.

In a skillet heat up olive oil and pan sear the pork loin on both sides.

Finish in the oven at 350F/175C. In a small skillet heat up the marinade and begin to reduce down.

Add butter a tablespoon at a time until there is a nice balance of the wine, lemon, and butter. While the pork is resting saute some swiss chard with salt, pepper, and olive oil. Slice the pork and serve over the chard. Top with the sauce.

It goes very well with roasted potato and parsnip. It was wonderful catching my husband up with how our week went and listening to him tell us about his. 🙂

The Lovely Zing of Fresh Horseradish…

Posted on June 13, 2014 by Our Growing Paynes

The fun thing about our local co-op is we can find unusual ingredients not normally found in our box store groceries. This time I found fresh horseradish root. As we are fans of this ingredient when we have roast beef I figured I would branch out a bit and play around with it. If you ever have stuffed sinuses have a bite of fresh horseradish. It will make you stand up and blink!

I planned an easy dinner to make because our plan was to whack some tennis balls back and forth. But it rained. Boo. Now that is is finely warm enough we were looking forward to running around and having some fun. That will have to wait.

I decided to do grilled portobello caps with steak and horseradish sauce.

Oregano is growing like crazy in our garden so I choice to use some to pretend I was making some kind of dent in the abundance of the herb. I made up a marinade of olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, chopped garlic and oregano. The ratio of oil and vinegar is 2 to 1. Season with salt and pepper. Mix well and add the mushrooms.

Set aside. On to the horseradish!

I had some plain Greek yoghurt so I used it as the base for my sauce. In a small bowl add 8 oz of yoghurt, about 2 tsp of fresh thyme, salt and pepper, a few squirts of lemon juice, and grated horseradish. The amount is up to you depending on how much zing you want. I do suggest adding a bit at a time until you hit the level of heat you want.

When I bought the steak, the way it was packaged it looked like two equal pieces which is what you want when serving two people. Does this look equal to you?

Like the moon to the earth! Season with salt and pepper and a dry rub of your choice. We like using the Salt Lick Spicy Dry Rub. Grill the steak and mushroom until cooked. We like ours on the rare side.

After letting the steak rest slice it and spoon the sauce over the meat to serve. Grate an aged Italian cheese of your choice over the mushrooms.

A perfect meal for after an activity like tennis. I hope we get to that soon! Maybe this weekend. 🙂

When Life Hands You Lemons Make Grilled Cheese!

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Our Growing Paynes

Thank you for those that watched my daughter’s episode, the feedback made her smile. 🙂 As you know the trick of adding acid to a dish was mentioned though the surprise was to add it to grilled cheese. Never thought of that. But I loved the idea. Of course I had to wait until the show came out so I didn’t spoil any surprises.

Last night I gave it a go. When I asked what kind of grilled cheeses I should make our son piped up with ham and pineapple! Crazy kid but I said sure. I bought some fontina cheese to go with it and he loved it. For the rest of us who aren’t as adventurous I thought I would do a mushroom grilled cheese.

I slices up a few mushrooms, chopped about 3 large cloves of garlic, and prepped some fresh thyme.

I heated up some olive oil in a skillet and sauteed the mushrooms first until they started browning. Then I added the garlic, thyme, and a few teaspoons of lemon juice. I think Luca likes to add a bit of lemon juice while you are cooking the actual grilled cheese but I wanted to incorporate it into the mushrooms.

Once the garlic is cooked set aside until you are ready to assemble the sandwiches. We were also do sweet potato and regular potato fries to go along with the sandwiches and that bit can take awhile! Especially when we are using a saucepan to fry. For our mushroom sandwiches I used Jarlsberg. Butter the outside of the bread and layer the cheese and mushrooms. We use our homemade sourdough for this.

To grill we used our cast iron griddle and press. Make sure both are hot and cook until golden and the cheese is melted.

My daughter and I added some ham to ours. This got a thumbs up and our son hopes we make his again as well. 😉 A fun dinner for a laid back weekend.

Our Growing Paynes

A journey about cooking, traveling, gardening, and crafting.

Tag Archives: lemon juice

Italian Potato Salad

Technique for Italian Potato Salad:

Italian Potato Salad

Ingredients

Dressing

Salad

Instructions

Creamy Lemon Bacon Chicken Pasta

Spicy Summer Grilling

Rosemary Garlic Pork

The Lovely Zing of Fresh Horseradish…

When Life Hands You Lemons Make Grilled Cheese!