Recipe: Potato Salad

This is adapted from A Spicy Perspective’s Potato Salad recipe. I’ve already made it twice (though my way takes a lot longer), have loved it both times and don’t want to forget how I made it in case I don’t make it again for a while. I’d definitely recommend checking out her website for the original recipe, along with other tips & tricks and lovely photos!

The below quantities should offer approx 8 servings.

For the salad:

  • 2.5lbs potatoes
  • 4 hard-boiled eggs
  • 2 stalks celery
  • 1/2 medium sweet onion
  • 3 stalks fresh dill
  • 1.5 tsp salt (and more to taste)
  • Smoked paprika, to serve (optional)

For the dressing:

  • 1 cup mayonnaise
  • 1 Tbsp yellow mustard
  • 2 Tbsp honey dijon mustard
  • 2/3 cups finely diced dill pickle (approx 4 pickles)
  • 3 stalks celery
  • 4 Tbsp dill pickle juice
  • 0.5 tsp smoked paprika
  • 0.5 tsp monk fruit sweetener
  • 1 tsp salt

Instructions:

Step 1 – cook the potatoes & eggs.

> Cut the potatoes into quarters and place into a large pot.
> Fill pot with cold water until the water is 1 inch above potatoes, then bring to a boil on high heat.
> Once boiling, add 1.5 tsp of salt and cook the potatoes for about 12-13min, or until fork tender.

> In a separate, smaller pot, submerge 4 eggs in cold water and bring to a boil on high heat.
> Once boiling, continue to cook eggs for ~6min, then remove from heat.
> Drain the boiling water, and fill the pot with cold water & some ice.

Step 2 – make the dressing.

> While the potatoes and eggs cook, finely dice the dill pickles and celery.
> Mix dressing ingredients in a medium bowl

Step 3 – assemble your salad.

> Once the potatoes are tender, drain the water then peel and cut the potatoes into approx 1 inch chunks. They’ll break apart a bit more as you mix up your salad.
> De-shell and dice up your eggs.
> Small dice your celery, onion and dill. You can leave some larger bits of dill for garnishing later if you like.
> Place all your salad ingredients into a large bowl and gently mix well. Your potatoes will break up a bit more at this point, and if you find the chunks are too large you can use your spoon/knife to cut up some larger chunks as desired.
> Gently mix in your dressing until the entire salad is well-coated.
> Taste, and add a bit more salt if needed.
> Garnish with smoked paprika and dill (optional. I didn’t and it still tasted great).

For best results, cover and refrigerate for a day or at least 4 hours before enjoying. That said, if you’re impatient like me, just dig right in with a spoon!

Muchos love,

Bobbie

Travel: Seattle Day 2 – Sushi Kashiba

On our second day in Seattle we had nothing planned except for eat, drink, and eat and drink, which is kind of exactly how I like to spend my time! We enjoyed a delicious and surprisingly filling brunch, after which we set off on our way to find some coffee.

We tried out Herkimer Coffee. I was impressed by the fluffy foam that they managed to achieve with my soy milk cappuccino, which is apparently a specialty of theirs. However, I found the flavour of the coffee itself a little too dark for my liking. I’m more of a medium-roast type of girl. Jacky enjoyed his regular latte though.

We did our Bible reading and rested while we drank our coffee, then leisurely wandered over to Pike Place to line up for what we were anticipating to be the highlight of our trip: Sushi Kashiba’s chef’s counter omakase. We had the most wonderful experience dining there last year so basically planned our entire trip around returning this year. Unfortunately, this year was… not the same.

We arrived around 3:30pm and there were already a number of people in line before us. Lining up this time was really frustrating and disappointing.

One person in front of us brought all of her friends into the line at a later hour, which caused us to be bumped to the 7pm seating. This would have been fine had the friends just jumped right in and not literally looked directly at me and asked for permission to jump in.

I’d responded, “Not really, if that means we get bumped to 7pm,” to which they responded that they’re “reasonable people” and insinuated they would totally bump themselves to the 7pm seating if Jacky and I wouldn’t be able to make the 5pm seating because of them. When the hostess came out to take names, they also turned to me multiple times to assure me that, “We counted, and you two are totally going to make it into the 5pm group.”

We did not make the 5pm seating. The friends took up the final spots.

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Review: South Lake Kitchen + Bar, Seattle

Woah it’s mid-October already? Ehhem, well, allow me to share with you what I was doing in early September heh heh. I did say that this restaurant deserved its own post so here it is, though I have had this in my drafts since 1st October but haven’t been able to finish writing it until now.

The South Lake Kitchen + Bar was our hotel’s restaurant. The entrance is through the hotel, but even if you weren’t a guest of the hotel it’s still worth a visit to eat here. I had one of the best brunches of my life at this very restaurant, and if I lived in Seattle I’d be here every week.

Their brunch menu had a Dungeness Crab Benedict, and I’m not sure if I’ve ever blogged about my love for eggs benedict before, but let’s just say I love eggs benedict so much I asked my chef friend to make it for me on Christmas Day once lol.

I literally go hunting for the best (or at least a decent) eggs benedict in every city I live. So far I haven’t found a good one close to me, not for lack of trying. I might start an Eggs Benedict section on this blog for all the places I’ve tried an eggs benedict. I’m surprised I haven’t done that already to be honest.

Either way, we decided to give it a try on our first morning there. I am not joking when I tell you it’s one of the best eggs benedict I’ve ever tasted, to the extent that I decided as soon as we tried it that we’d need to have it again as our final meal before we leave to go back home. We were only going to be in town for a total of 6 days and ended up eating here 3 times – twice for brunch and once for dinner.

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Recipe: Low Calorie High Protein French Toast & Chocolate Sauce

I need to write this down before I forget. During the Great Lockdown of 2020, I started really getting into fitness and changing my diet. I dropped about 5-6lbs in the course of a year and a half, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to maintain it and have since gained back about 3lbs.

There were multiple new recipes I tried during that period – some that I really enjoyed, but many that I only tolerated. I didn’t really understand how a bunch of fitness influencers / bodybuilders were saying, “Mmmm, it tastes sooo good,” when I only thought it was okay while my husband wouldn’t eat it.

One such recipe was Coach Greg’s high protein french toast recipe. That was one that I quite liked, but always found to be too dry unless I added loads of honey, which defeated the purpose of a low calorie, high protein french toast recipe.

I haven’t watched his videos in a long, long time but one thing I remembered him always harping on about was Walden Farms Chocolate Syrup to go on the french toast. So the last time I wanted french toast, I purchased some to try and hated it. It ended up sitting in my fridge since, barely used.

This morning I had a craving for french toast. So I tried something new with my toppings… and oh my gosh, I’m in love. Well, I mean, it went from a 6/10 to an 8.5/10. And I am very happy with 8.5/10, and could happily eat it again and again. In fact, I want more now haha.

I didn’t take a photo before I dug in because I honestly wasn’t expecting to like it this much, but not only did I love it, but my husband also enjoyed it. He went from “I only want one bite” to “I should stop because I am eating all your food and I said I wouldn’t.”

It’s all in the sauce, which is also high in protein, low in calories and only uses 3 ingredients. Plus now I finally can make use of the Walden Farms Chocolate Syrup I purchased like half a year ago and can’t return at this point. So allow me to share with you this incredible and incredibly easy recipe that changes french toast from dry and a bit meh to moist and delicious.

368 kcal: 41g carbs / 6g fat / 32g protein – serves one.

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Kitten Diaries: Rory’s Hunt For New Wet Food – Part 5

Hello, it is I, a Rory ball. Mum keeps calling me “a Dora ball” but I don’t know who Dora is, and I am clearly a Rory ball, doing regular Rory things. We both thought that my previous post would be the last one, didn’t we? Well, it’s a good thing I picked some excellent servants who rightfully enjoy spoiling me silly.

They came home with bags of new food and a new toy for me (which I am very happy with!! It’s a tunnel with a fluffy bed and a cute little boll dangling inside the tunnel and I looove it) and as part of their food haul they got me 2 new flavours of Tiki Cat Aloha Friends to try!

They saw how much I loved the regular Tuna & Pumpkin so figured why not get me some of the other recipes for me to try too? I have trained them well, if I may say so myself. I’m glad they have finally learned of my penchant for wet tuna. It took them long enough.

It has been given to me to know that they did not purchase more than one can of each of these two flavours because they weren’t sure how I’d take to them, since the recipes are not purely tuna. They got me loads of cans of the regular tuna & pumpkin as well as ahi tuna ones that I loved before though. Good servants.

So, here I am, trying out more flavours for your benefit, of course. I know that you wanted to hear from me again. It’s totally not for my benefit, nope, not at all. Try to curb your enthusiasm as you read through this okay? I know you must be very excited.

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