August 10-14, 2015
(Not Your) Grandma's Potato Salad!
We took a healthier approach to an old favorite this week in Nutrition Expedition: Grandma's Potato Salad! The children assisted with the production of this summer dish, from mashing the taters, to whipping up a healthy and aromatic dressing!
Taken from our copy of the National Geographic Kids Cookbook: A Year-Round Fun Food Adventure, written by Barton Seaver, the recipe sounded quite tasty! The 3's and 4's classes were my test group, as I had never made this version of potato salad before. The results received mixed reviews, however :( While mixing up the dressing, we were getting delicious hints of dill and lemon, and our mouths were watering! However, it did NOT taste delicious (yuck!). It was quite sour, likely due to the amount of fresh-squeezed lemon juice the recipe called for, as well as the plain Greek yogurt and too much celery seed. Here is the original recipe that we used for the first batch:
After the first failed batch, I experimented with the recipe a bit to see if I could improve the flavor. For the next class up, the two-year-olds, I used less lemon, and swapped out the whole grain mustard with Bolthouse Farm's Honey Mustard Yogurt Dressing. I also cut down the amount of onion powder and celery seed. This was definitely an improvement from the day before, but it still didn't quite hit the mark! For the third batch (the Nursery), I used less yogurt, a tad more honey mustard dressing, and just a sprinkle or two of celery seeds. We were onto something, but I decided to tweak it just a bit more :) Finally, by the fourth try with the Toddlers, I got it just right, which is also the revised recipe that I used for the School-Age class. Here is the new and improved formula, with a new and improved name:
