Potato Salad and a Picnic

What's more perfect for a picnic than potato salad? Louise, at Months of Edible Celebrations, is having an online alphabet picnic and is inviting everyone to bring a dish corresponding to a letter of the alphabet. The letter of the dish you bring depends on when you go over to her blog and sign up for the picnic.

I happened to get the letter D so I searched my blog for a D recipe that would be appropriate to bring to a picnic and I also wracked my brains to think of a recipe that would begin with D. The only post I could find with a D were my dogs, where I introduced you to my furry friends, so I've renamed my Perfect Potato Salad to Dill Potato Salad since there's dill in it. I suppose I could bring my dogs to the picnic, but you're supposed to bring food.

I "borrowed" this picture from Taste, because I didn't have a camera when I first blogged about my potato salad, and I wanted to get this post up to let everyone know about the Picnic, but the recipe is all mine and I've been making this Dill Potato Salad for a very long time.

• 2 pounds red potatoes, skin on
• 4 - 6, maybe 7 or 8 slices turkey bacon, crisp-cooked and crumbled
• 1/4 - 1/3 cup very finely-diced yellow onion
• 1 small green bell pepper, finely chopped
• 1/4 tsp. or more dry mustard (my secret ingredient)
• 1/4 - 1/2 cup light mayonnaise, more or less depending on how much is needed to make a moist potato salad
• Couple shakes of dill weed
• Salt and black pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the whole potatoes, bring to a boil again, then reduce the heat and let simmer for 20 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Drain in a colander and rinse under cold water. Set aside--usually putting the colander in the sink is the best place--and let cool at room temperature. They'll still be a little warm when you cut them.

While the potatoes are cooling, cook the bacon, dice the onion, and chop the green bell pepper. It's understood that you'll drain the bacon on paper towels, but just thought I'd mention it here.

When the potatoes are cool, slice them, one at a time, on a cutting board with a wet knife; makes it easier and you'll probably have to keep wetting the knife with water because those silly little potatoes can get so sticky about it.

After slicing, cut the slices into cute little (or large) cubes and put them in a large plastic bowl, preferably Tupperware which has a tight-fitting lid so you can carry your potato salad to the barbecue or picnic or wherever it is you're taking it. But don't put the lid on it yet. And here's a secret for cubing already-cooked potatoes. Put the one-potato-at-a-time slices on top of one another and cut through the long way and then the short way.

Put the onions and green bell peppers that you've diced and chopped so nicely into the bowl and admire how pretty and colorful your potato salad looks. Think nice thoughts about everyone enjoying it at the barbecue. Mix the onions and bell pepper in just a wee little bit, so they can get friendly with the potatoes.

If you've already crumbled your crisp-cooked bacon, you'll be missing out on the fun part: Crumbling it into the bowl with your hands. You can make much better crumbles this way and if you're starting to get hungry thinking that the potato salad is going to be so good, you can lick your fingers. Most people prefer to simply wash their hands, but I used to make this potato salad with my kids when they were little and this was one of the fun parts of cooking together. They always called dibs on crumbling the bacon and I had to wait until they grew up and moved out on their own before I got to crumble the bacon again.

Now that you've buddied up the bacon with the potatoes, onions, and green bell pepper, shake in some dry mustard. (If you've never heard of dry mustard before, it's like a spice and is sold in the spice section in a cute little yellow can.) Just a tad because too much and it will tend to overpower the potatoes. It tends to get a bit sharp and tangy after it's been sitting for awhile. But you might like your mustard this way and it's all a matter of taste anyway. The taste will grow of its own accord after you refrigerate the potato salad for an hour or two, so you can always add more later if you want to.

Gently massage your not-yet-finished potato salad with a wooden spoon, just to make sure the mustard and the bacon and the green bell peppers and the onions all get to be good friends.

Then introduce the mayonnaise, but not all at once. Mayonnaise has a tendency to be shy because it has to dress the somewhat naked potato salad. Stir some in, see what happens, take a taste, then stir a little more in, take a taste, repeat, then stand back to admire how well everyone is getting along. But don't take too many tastes; you won't have anything left to bring to the barbecue. This has happened to me a few times.

You're not done yet. You still have to put the finishing touches on, to finesse your potato salad to perfection. When your potato salad is well-moistened and mixed, shake in some dill, stir it around a bit, and then add salt and black pepper to taste. Take a few more tastes, just to be sure it's absolutely perfect and because you're hungry. Put the lid on it (if it's Tupperware, you can burp it), stick it in the fridge and let it chill out for awhile.

I'm going to a picnic and I'm bringing Dill Potato Salad.