dill potato salad

Potato salad isn't exactly pretty. You can try to dress it up — put it in a pink and ridiculously tiny mug, even — but it insists on being a little... frumpy. It's potatoes, celery and egg, dammit, and it's never going to change its ways.

...Except, this was potato salad in a way I'd never had it before. With its part sour cream/part mayonnaise mix and lots of fresh dill, it became creamier and lighter at the same time. The dill added a fresh garden burst. It still has my favorite potato salad standards — chopped hard-boiled egg and a little chopped onion — but this is a bright new twist.

Dill Potato Salad

Adapted from Bunkycooks

This is best made a day or two in advance of serving. I also think you could even use less mayo than this recipe calls for.

1 and 1/2 pounds potatoes, scrubbed (I used a mix of fingerling and gourmet baby red)

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup sour cream (I used Cabot)

mustard powder to taste

3/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste

1/4 teaspoon pepper, or to taste

1/2 celery, chopped thinly

1/2 cup sweet onion, diced

2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and diced

3 teaspoons fresh dill, chopped finely

Boil the potatoes until just soft; you want them to be tender enough to stick a fork in, but still firm. When cool, cut them into bite sizes.

In a large bowl, whisk together mayonnaise, sour cream, mustard powder, salt and pepper. Fold in chopped potatoes, celery, onion, eggs and dill until well covered.

Let stand in fridge until serving; season again if necessary.

long weekend

Hello, friends!

Not to brag, but I've got the best weekend ahead of me. Laura is visiting, and I'm taking tomorrow off work to spend the day with her. The proposed weekend itinerary includes catching fireworks by the Winooski River, admiring tiny trees at a bonsai show, eating sweets at a strawberry festival and hopefully baking something delicious. Though, who knows, we may just grab a bottle of wine, gossip and play Apples to Apples all weekend. Both are equally tempting.

Have a lovely few days! What are your plans?

green mountain railroad

Sunday's White River Junction/Quechee daytrip, in a nutshell: train tracks, sunshine, antiquing, a carousel, raspberry iced tea.

strawberry cake

The drive back from our recent trip to Pennsylvania was pretty brutal. We were down there, for a short about two and a half days, to see my first cousin get married. We left the following morning, nursing slight wedding hangovers (one whiskey sour too many!), at an annoyingly sunny 8 a.m., with close to eight hours til we'd reach Burlington again.

Luckily, my parents did all the driving back to New York, so Dave and I were fully functional by our Vermont leg of the trip. And we couldn't wait to stop by Pattie's Patch, our favorite farm stand just before the state border. We wanted strawberries.

And then ... we had so many strawberries I didn't know what to do with them. But a few days later, it felt like a cake was in order. And when I came across this recipe, I knew a cake was in order.

This was a delicious dessert served warm out of the oven, with a little drizzle of freshly made strawberry sauce on top. So it makes me really happy to report that the cake got better with age. Two days later, it was more moist. The strawberry sweetness popped more. I couldn't tell you what it was like by day three or four, because I'm pretty sure it was g-o-n-e.

Strawberry Cake

Slightly adapted from The Kitchen Sink Recipes

The only thing I had to alter with this recipe was the amount of strawberries. I'm really not sure how you could possibly fit a full pound of strawberries on top of this cake! If you can, go for it. I used more like 2 and 1/2 cups, and the rest for an easy strawberry sauce. (Simmer the strawberries with vanilla and sugar til juicy, then blend.)

6 tablespoons butter, softened

1 and 1/2 cups flour

1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

roughly 2 and 1/2 cups strawberries, hulled and halved

2 tablespoons sugar (raw or sanding sugar if you have it), for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Butter a pie plate or cake pan. My cake pan was 9-inches.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.

In a separate bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the butter and 1 cup sugar. Mix until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add in egg, milk and vanilla, and mix. Gradually add in the flour mixture.

Transfer the mix to your pie plate or cake pan. Arrange the strawberries as close as you can get them on the top, placing the cut sides down. Sprinkle evenly with 2 tablespoons sugar.

Bake 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 325 degrees and bake about an hour longer, until it's firm and golden.

weekend!

I just did a massive camera upload, and there's so much I haven't shared with you guys! I'll get to that in about two seconds, but let's talk about the weekend first.

The next few days promise to be extra fun, and not only because it's gloriously hot and sunny out. Barbecue plans are in the works for tonight, tomorrow is a beach day (and maybe a little shopping and/or laundry, as I seem to be completely out of cute clothes...) and Sunday ... my friend and I are roadtripping to White River Junction to take a themed train ride for a magazine article she's writing. We've never explored down there and I can't wait! Do you Vermonters have any must-see suggestions for that area?

And now, a photo diary of the last month or so. Happy weekending!

Lake Champlain, as seen from Battery Park

Random Burlington view. I think we were on top of a parking garage.

My parents, Dave and I, in Pennsylvania for my cousin's wedding :)

Ricketts Glen State Park, Pennsylvania

We saw more than 20 waterfalls on a two-hour hike.

...and dipped our toes in the freezing water.