Daring Cooks: Grilled Potato Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette

This month was another interesting month with the Daring Cooks. Like last month it is a contest and like last month I am creating my own recipe. Not sure if I am very good at creating my own recipes but it is fun to try. I do want to thank everyone who voted for my grilled squash salad in an edible woven bowl in last months edible container contest. I came in third place with a lot of tough competition.

This month the challenge was to create a delicious and healthy potato salad. The challenge is being sponsored by the United States Potato Board who will be picking the top five recipes and selecting the winners this month.

I love potato salad but one thing I don't think of when I think of potato salad is healthy. I once made a potato salad with light mayo and YUCK - light mayo is not a product anyone should have to eat. So it was time to think outside the box. One thing I do often in the summer is to grill potatoes - delicious - so I decided to start there. Now what other flavors to use. I used some pretty basic spices and herbs that I normally use when grilling potatoes. After that I decided to scan the grocery store for inspiration. It is raspberry season here and raspberries are on sale here. I am not sure I have ever had raspberries with potatoes so I am not sure why I thought it would work but I did. I also had some raspbanero jam that I received as a gift from my wife's cousin. The jam is made and sold by some friends of theirs at the hixton blue collar cafe and it is delicious. I love to eat it just spread on crackers. If I am ever in Hixton, WI (or if I figure out where Hixton, WI is) I will have to check out their other products. I know most of you will probably not have quick access to raspbanero jam so I would recommend just using raspberry jam along with some cayenne if you want the heat.

There result was really good. It was nothing like any potato salad I have had before but it was a tasty and health alternative. I think the raspberries went well with the potatoes. The combination of the sweet and hot was very nice with the grilled potatoes and peppers. Here is what I came up with - I hope you enjoy!

Grilled Potato Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette

Serves about 4

Ingredients

• 2 lbs red potatoes - I use the larger ones but doesn't matter
• 2 t vegetable oil ( or olive oil if you like )
• 1/2 t kosher salt
• 1/4 t paprika
• 1/4 t dried thyme
• 1/4 t dried rosemary
• 1/4 t garlic powder
• 1/4 t black pepper
• pinch cayenne if desired
• 1 red bell pepper ( or any other color), seeded and cut into 1" squares
• 1/2 sweet red onion, course diced
• 1 cup raspberries
• 1 T fresh basil, chopped

For Vinaigrette

• 1/4c cider vinegar
• 1T vegetable oil
• 1T dijon mustard
• 1T raspbanero jam ( or raspberry jam or jelly)
• pinch cayenne if desired and you did not use the raspbanero jam.

Directions

1. Heat gas or charcol grill.
2. Scrub potatoes and cut into 1" cubes. Parboil potatoes for about 6 minutes - they will be almost cooked but not quite. Drain and put into a large bowl.
3. Add 2t oil, salt, paprika, thyme, rosemary, garlic powder, black pepper, cayenne, and bell pepper to bowl and toss.
4. Place potato / pepper mixture on hot grill. Flip them once or twice with a spatula and cook until there are some nice grill marks on potatoes. Should take about 10 minutes.
5. Allow potatoes to cool to room tempurature.
6. Put all ingredients for vinaigrette in a blender and mix until well blended. If you used raspberry jam you may want to strain the seeds at this point.
7. Toss cooled potatoes with onions, raspberries, basil and vinaigrette. Add vinaigrette a little at a time so you don't have too much.
8. Serve immediately.

Daring Bakers: Edible Containers

Wow! What a month. April has been a big, busy month for me - both food-releated and otherwise. We just got done with a fantastic Easter and now I am working on preparing food and a cake for 100 people for a retirement party for my father-in-law - Congrats to him. As you can see from the title the Daring Bakers are doing an edible container just like the Daring Cooks last month. If you haven't already - check out my last post. It was the first I (I think ) Daring Cooks that was kind of a contest, and to my surprise, I am one of the finalists. There was a lot of good competition so it is a big honor for me. If you haven't already, and if it is before May 17, go to The Daring Kitchen and vote at the top of the page.

Now on to this months challenge. This month Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz challenged us to make an edible container for a maple mousse. Evelyne is from Quebec and gives a very good description of how maple syrup is part of the culture on her blog. Well again I wanted to try to be unique. There are lots of things that go with maple - bacon, nuts, pancakes, squash, sweet potatoes, chocolate - the possibilities are endless. That is part of the reason I am posting this on the last day possible - too many ideas.

The idea I finally settled on was something from my childhood. I grew up in NY and now live in MN - two of the top three maple syrup producers in the US and one of my favorite things as a child was maple sugar candy. If you have never had it - it is just maple syrup and maybe some butter and it is very soft and creamy - just melts in your mouth. I wanted to do the same thing only as a bowl. Easier said than done. I think it took me five tries. The recipes on the internet said to heat to softball stage but I could not get it out of the container without cracking it. I finally ended up using a small silicone measuring bowl for the mold and heating the syrup up close to hard ball stage - it worked like a charm then.

Even though I am crazy about all things maple I thought maybe I needed something else with my maple mousse in a maple bowl. I decided to put small chocolate bowl (not easy either) in the maple bowl and I am using two kinds of mousse. Every month I see someone in the Daring Bakers use Nutella in their challenge so I decided it was now my turn. I thought it would go perfect with the maple.

The results were really good. The maple mousse was really good - a nice maple / buttery taste and smooth texture. I think the texture was much nicer than most mousse I have had. I think the nutella mousse was great too - I am sure my wife liked it better. It had that great nutella flavor and it went very nice with the maple from the mousse and the bowl.

While the maple bowl was not quite as I imagined it - it didn't have that creamy texture of the candies I remember - it still was easy to eat and lots of great maple flavor. I assume the difference in texture was because of having to take it to the higher temperature since my first attempts were much softer.

I'll post my recipe for the Nutella mousse here but if you would like to check out the maple mousse you can find that recipe in the challenge posted here.

Nutella Mousse

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon gelatin
• 1/4-1/2 cup nutella
• 1 cup heavy cream

Directions

1. Put 2 tablespoons of cream in a small bowl and sprinkle gelatin over the top. Set aside to soften gelatin.
2. Whip the remaining cream.
3. Add nutella a few tablespoons at a time and beat to combine. You can use 1/4-1/2 cup nutella to suit your taste.
4. Add the cream/gelatin mixture and combine.
5. Put the mousse into serving bowls and chill until set (about 1-2 hours).

Daring Cooks: Edible Containers

Renata of Testado, Provado & Aprovado! was our Daring Cooks’ April 2011 hostess. Renata challenged us to think “outside the plate” and create our own edible containers!

Yup - that was the whole challenge. We could make whatever we wanted for an edible container and put whatever we wanted into it. In some ways that is the hardest kind of challenge since it is so open, but it is also fun to try to come up with something creative. Renata gave us several examples of things we could do - but I kind of wanted to come up with something different.

I thought of the idea of weaving something but kind of ruled it out. When my wife, Lara, later suggested it ( and I couldn't think of anything better ) I decided to give it a try. I shaved off thin peels from zucchini and yellow squash. I microwaved them a little to soften them up. I can't say the weaving was easy. I am not normally one to give up on something but I tried it before my wife got home from work and gave up. I did not expect it to work but my wife got it to work - she has done some basket making - who knew that would be a helpful skill in the kitchen.

I think the basket turned out pretty nice. It was cute and "edible". It was also very difficult and I would not want to be making these for a large dinner party. For the contents I made a grilled squash salad. The salad is very easy and quick to make. It tasted very good and looked nice and springy in the basket.

Thanks to Renata of Testado, Provado & Aprovado! for this months challenge. Renata is one of my favorite Daring Cooks. She always has very creative solutions to the challenges and she is always very active in the forums and commenting on peoples blogs. Check out her blog - it is in Portuguese but she has an English version as well.

Grilled Squash Salad

Serves about 4

• 3-4 zucchini and yellow squash
• 8-12 peppadew peppers (these are hard to find so another sweet or slightly hot pepper could be substituted)
• 2 T vegetable oil (or EVOO)
• 1 T kosher salt
• 1/4 t pepper
• juice from 1 lemon
• 2 clove garlic
• 2 t fresh basil
• 1 T Parmesan cheese

1. Wash the squash well if you are not peeling it. Julienne the squash (I used a mandolin).
2. Mix the squash with 1T of the oil and the salt and pepper.
3. Mix the remaining 1 T oil and remaining ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
4. Cook squash mixture over a medium-hot grill until tender (only takes 2 minutes or so).
5. Toss the squash with the lemon juice mixture.

Daring Bakers: Mets la main à la pâte! Yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake

I had never really heard of a yeasted meringue coffee cake before. It didn't look like any coffee cake I had ever seen, but any cake with chocolate and nuts in it can't be that bad. We were given two different versions of a recipe, one was filled with pecans or walnuts, cinnamon, sugar, and chocolate. The other used cashews, sugar, garam masala, and chocolate. I kind of wish I tried the second version, it sounds good to me, but I decided to play it safe so that my wife would enjoy it more.

I made it using the first version of the recipe with no variations, and using pecans for the nuts. It went together easily. I was a little concerned with how hot the liquid was when I added it to the flour / yeast mixture - I thought it might kill the yeast - but it seemed to rise just fine.

The coffee cake was much different than any coffee cake I have had before. It is much more like a bread than a cake. It was very nice though - not very sweet at all - just a little bit. The chocolate, nuts, and cinnamon were there but they were much more subtle than in a more typical coffee cake. The actual "cake" part was like a moist, slightly sweet bread. I couldn't really tell what the meringue added - I expected to get more texture from it but I think the effect was much more subtle than I expected - I am sure it added to the sweetness though.

The recipe made two small rings (at least it was small compared to the Christmas Stollen we made). My family ate one of the rings and I sent the other to my wife's work where it got many favorable reviews.

This months challenge was presented by two bloggers this month - Jamie of Life's a Feast and Ria of Ria's Collection. If you would like to try to make this months challenge you can find the recipe in the Daring Kitchen Recipe Archive.

On a final housekeeping note I decided to try out Disqus for the blog commenting system. I think I like it but let me know if you like the old comment method better. This system will give the blog threaded comments and would let me respond directly to your comments.