Quick Tips

Tip #1:   Whenever it's taco night at our house, I always run into the same predicament....do I want to deal with the messiness of a soft tortilla or the messiness of throwing all the ingredients on top of a bowl of tortilla chips?  I've  never been a fan of crunchy shell tacos.  Ever since my days at the Washington and Lincoln Grade School cafeterias I strongly dislike crunchy shell tacos.  I mean, come on, as soon as you take the first bite you're essentially eating your taco as nachos!  Anyway....we had tacos the other night and I decided to lightly toast up my soft tortilla.  I sprayed the non-stick skillet with some cooking spray, heated it up and then tossed it in.  I would let the air pockets inside the tortilla rise and then I would press them back down and flip it over, allowing for equal opportunity toasting.  When the tortilla had a nice golden color and a slight crisp, I prepared it for the taco ingredients.  BUT, I only put them on half of the tortilla!  I then, gently ran the pizza cutter across the center divide, which allowed the tortilla to be folded in half, allowing for easy consuming and almost no mess at all!  AND the toasting brought out the flavor of the tortilla and assisted in the melding of the topping flavors...like melting the cheese and meat together.  Taco night no longer has a predicament...it's toasted tortilla all the way!!!

Tip #2:   I love homemade potato salad....I have yet to find a store bought kind that even comes remotely close to good potato salad.  Say the weekly menu on your fridge says that on Friday you're having brats on the grill and potato salad....that probably means that on Thursday night you're going to clean and peel the potatoes, put them on to boil until fork tender, drain, let cool slightly, add other delicious potato salad ingredients, mix, cover and refrigerated until Friday at dinner time.  (That whole process just wore me out typing it!)  So, now say you forget to do all of that on Thursday night....oops!  And Friday when you get home you're not willing to sacrifice the greatness of homemade potato salad for the dire taste of something store bought :(  And then...like out of nowhere...an idea emerges...could I possibly pop them in the microwave as if to "bake" them, cut them up, allow for a quick cooling, then add other ingredients, pop in the fridge for chilling until the brats are done..and it actually work?!

So, maybe that story was about me and dinner from last night :)  Here's what I did:  cleaned 4 small potatoes (since it was just the two of us), I did not peel them, stabbed them with a knife (repeatedly), then put them in the microwave and pushed the conveniently created potato button and set it for 2 potatoes (I know, I said I cleaned 4 small potatoes, but my microwave feels that potatoes are the size of 2 of the ones that I have....4 divided by 2 is...2), which was equivalent to 9 minutes.  At 4 minutes, 30 seconds, I turned the potatoes over and allowed them to finish.  Once finished, I allowed them to sit and cool for a couple of minutes then started cutting them into small cubes, then put them in the bowl for more cooling....at this point I realized that we didn't have any mayo and my husband willingly went to the store to get some for me....(also at this point was when I realized that it might have just been less work to drive the half-mile to Walmart to get store-bought potato salad).  But I press on...after Paul gets back from the store, I proceed.  I had already hard boiled some eggs a couple of days before, so it was just a matter of cutting them up and tossing them in.  After the last ingredient was in the bowl, all were stirred together, taste-tested, then put in the fridge while the brats started grilling.  Even with the little misstep of not having any mayo, the homemade potato salad was still WAY better (in my book) than anything I could have easily picked up at the store.

Happy cooking!