My 200th Recipe!

I just realized that this morning I imported my 200th recipe into my Recipe Trove. That's a lot of cooking going on! Just 200 recipes, and there are so many that I make that aren't even in there yet! It's pretty exciting to me to go online and view my counters for each of my blogs, and see that the Recipe Trove gets about 50 hits a day- that's quite a few people looking for something good to cook. And that's 50 people looking to cook in the first place- that's encouraging, I hope they're finding what they are looking for there.

It just so happens that the 200th recipe is one that is fitting for a celebration this time of year. You can't have a picnic or a party in Wisconsin this time of year without a bowl of potato salad. Potato Salad also happens to be one of the things I learned to make from my mom. Which of course means there is no recipe. It's toss a bit of this and a bit of that into a bowl and you have potato salad. I have managed with time to write down most of the recipe, and I think I have it right. And while that is usually the potato salad I make, I just had to try the one Emeril featured on his show. You know how sometimes you see a recipe being made and you just have to try it? That was the case with this potato salad. Potatoes, eggs, onions, and ranch dressing form the base of this potato salad, and then is gilded with the addition of bacon. Bacon! Now how could this potato salad be bad! Using ranch dressing instead of mayo was also interesting, so I just had to try it.

Emeril's Favorite Potato Salad is excellent. It's just enough different from standard potato salad to make it, well, different. The bacon adds a wonderful layer of flavor, and they only thing I would change for next time would be to add some radishes. Otherwise, the recipe is perfect as is. One thing that I would recommend is that you use a good quality ranch dressing for this recipe. I find that most reduced fat and fat free ranch dressings really lack depth, so I went with a bottle of Hidden Valley Buttermilk Ranch for this salad. Marie's is another ranch dressing I favor. Homemade dressing would be fine if you have one you really like, but make sure the dressing has flavor and isn't too sweet. I've been eating this salad all week with my lunch and will be sad to see it gone later today, it's most definitely a company worthy potato salad. And for those who are interested, I also have my version on Mom's Potato Salad in the Recipe Trove as well. I say my version because it's not the same as Mom's- but it is good, and similar in that you dump what you need into the bowl and see if you like it or if it needs more of something.