Salade Pomme De Terre Nicoise (French Potato Salad)

This is an adaptation of a regular Nicoise salad recipe, except I'm using potato's instead of lettuce. I've also made this using whole wheat pasta spirals in place of lettuce. All three are absolutely delicious and all of the ingredients can be changed to suit your tastes or what you happen to have on hand.

3lbs. potato's

1 C. green beans

4 hard boiled eggs, chopped (whites only)

2 tomato's, chopped

1 can of black olives

3-5oz cans of tuna or salmon

1/2 C. fresh Italian parsley, chopped

1 small red onion

French vinagrette dressing to taste (recipe in previous post)

Peel, boil and dice potato's as you would for any other potato salad, cool in refrigerator. Blanch green beans. (Trim and boil beans for 4 minutes, then immerse in ice water. When potato's are cooled down, toss all ingredients together.

French Vinagrette Dressing

3 t. herbes de provence

1 t. salt

2 T. dijon mustard

1/2 C. red wine vinegar

1 C. extra virgin olive oil

Shake ingredients together in a jar and store in the refrigerator. The dressing stays mixed because the mustard emulsifies it.

Make your own herb blends

I scored this nifty little food dehydrator from Freecycle. When I ran out of one of my favorite herb blends, herbs de provence, I decided to try and make my own using what I have on hand instead of running to the store. I have a rosemary and a lavender bush in my yard, so I picked some. It took only three hours to dry the herbs. I blended them with equal amounts of thyme and sage that I had on hand. It worked out just fine and saved me a few dollars.