Sunday, August 2, is Friendship Day. An outdoor party with friends is the best recipe for fun. But even in a group of best friends, all is not fair. Here's a brief account of how on this friendship outing to a picnic I got the short end of the straw and lengthened it.
"Let's go for a picnic at the lake! We'll go hiking and swimming!" my friends rallied. "We'll have a pot-luck picnic at the park!" went the cheer. "We'll bring brats and buns," one couple volunteered."
"We'll bring dessert and sodas!" other friends added.
I was slow and left to offer, "I'll bring the sides." Yes, I was to bring some Herculean, vegetable side-dish that could hold up in flavor and appearance while keeping bacteria at bay for the length of a summer day. What picnic food can be driven for an hour, stay in a car for 3 hours, sit on a picnic table for 4 hours and still be edible? Isn't this asking a lot of a vegetable? - at least one that tastes good? How about potato chips? Everybody likes them. Definitely bring the potato chips.
But I know these adults. They like "healthy food", which means to say that on the picnic plate beside the brat on a fluffy white roll has to be a healthy, vegetable side-dish that does not pour from a bag, - a deli carton okay, but not from a bag. But at a picnic I'd have to nix the traditional coleslaws and potato salads - they have mayonnaise in them. Nix the oil and vinegar lettuce salads, they get limp and soggy, and my kids don't like them anyway. - Oh yes, there's that hidden requirement, - kids have to like the food too.
So for this all-day, outdoor party I chose a recipe for sweet potato salad. My kids like sweet potatoes and this potato salad is sweetened with honey, - definitely a kid-friendly substance. And as sweeteners go, honey is healthy. Honey contains natural anti-bacterial compounds; that's why honey doesn't spoil in the hive. If those picnic table germs aren't scared off by the honey, the acids from the vinegar and lemon juice in this potato salad will pickle them! Yes, folks, here's a delicious, kid-friendly potato salad without mayonnaise! It can travel to a distant park, hang out on a picnic table and not spoil for the rest of the day. (Three days may be pushing it.) This potato salad even looks pretty. The dressing turns the sweet potatoes vibrant orange, and the green onions and diced red pepper add colorful accents. Click on "Continue reading..." for the recipe.