Take Gary's contribution to the 4th of July barbecue at Poppy's house: ostensibly a potato salad, but really, the key ingredient was homegrown, organic garlic. And lots of it. Two full heads! Talk about potent! Good thing we all ate it though aside from the watermelon, everything else we ate -- Joanie's baked beans and spinach pie, roasted Spot (pork ribs), and a free-range chicken I brought along from one of my favorite local farmers outside of DC -- was infused with garlic as well.
Boy, oh, boy was that potato salad good. I've been eating it for breakfast the last two mornings. Though Farmer Gary tried to get out of giving me the recipe, as he insisted it was always changing, based on available ingredients, I would not relent. Here, more or less, is the recipe for his 4th of July version.
Garlic Salad (Featuring Potatoes)
Ingredients
- 3 pounds freshly dug organic potatoes, unpeeled
- 2 heads of organic garlic, peeled and minced
- a handful of lemon thyme
- 4 small onions (white or red or a mixture), @ silver-dollar sized
- 3/4 cup garple elixir (you can pick up a bottle at the Pocono Garlic Festival this fall!)
- 4 TBSP olive oil
- 4 TBSP mayonnaise
- salt and pepper, to taste
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add potatoes and boil for about 20 minutes, until tender but not mushy. Run cooked potatoes under cold water until cool enough to chop into chunks. Toss potato chunks in a large bowl with remaining ingredients, then chill garlic salad... I mean potato salad... in the fridge until it's time to eat.
If you're a busy farmer, you might use Gary's quick chill method of popping the warm potato salad into the freezer for 20 minutes to cool. Me, I would eat that salad however I can get it: hot, cold, lukewarm, with green eggs and ham....
