Daring Cook's June Challenge: Healthy Potato Salads

Jami Sorrento was our June Daring Cooks hostess and she chose to challenge us to celebrate the humble spud by making a delicious and healthy potato salad. The Daring Cooks Potato Salad Challenge was sponsored by the nice people at the United States Potato Board, who awarded prizes to the top 3 most creative and healthy potato salads. A medium-size (5.3 ounce) potato has 110 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium and includes nearly half your daily value of vitamin C and has more potassium than a banana!

There are a million recipes for healthy potato salads, my favorite one is actually the Russian "Selyodka pod Shuboy" or "Herring under Fur Coat."It is a delicious and nutritious salad with many vegetables and a beautiful presentation when you slice through and see all the different colors. It reminds me or a rainbow really!

As always, I made a few changes to the original recipe. I made it healthier and just as tasty.

The ingredients are as follows:
2 large potatoes
4 eggs
4 medium carrots peeled
1 can sliced beets/ or 2 beets
5 large slices of smoked salmon (the original recipe uses herring, but it can sometimes be hard to find and it is very oily)
1/2 cup light mayonnaise
2 TBS nonfat yogurt
Salt and Pepper as needed

1. Boil the potatoes and carrots together. You can choose to leave the skin on the potatoes or not, i find it helps them hold together during cooking. When soft, drain and allow to cool.

2. Boil the eggs

3. If you are using raw beets, roast them or boil them until soft. If using canned, skip this part.

4. When vegetables are cooked, shred them with a grater.

5. When the potatoes, beets and carrots are shredded, set them aside.

6. With the back of a fork, crush the egg with the mayonnaise and the yogurt. If you have an egg slicer, slice the egg into strips by cutting once and then cutting parallel. Even though the mayo is light, add a little yogurt to make it creamier without the added fat and calories. It tastes just as good. Season with salt and pepper.

7. When you have all of your components ready, arrange them into separate bowls to make it easier to assemble your layered salad.

8. You can assemble the salad in clear glasses like I did, or place them in a deep dish that you can then unmould and slice. It will look beautiful when you arrange all the layers carefully.

9. Arrange a layer of salmon to cover the bottom of the dish, then top with potatoes, egg mixture, carrots, potatoes, egg mixture, beets, egg mixture.  The order doesn't really matter and if you want to double up on some layers of your favorite vegetable, do so. They key is to make it as colorful as possible so that it looks like an edible rainbow!  In the original version of this recipe there is a layer of mayonnaise between each vegetable layer (to hold it all together when you unmould). I decided to mix the mayonnaise with the egg so that we have more flavor in a smaller bite. It's really super flexible and did I mention it takes only 20 minutes to make?

Ravioli in Vodka Sauce Healthified!!

Aaah what is better than a delicious ravioli in vodka sauce? Answer: One with just as good of a taste but with far less calories! That's right.. you can have your pasta and eat it too with this recipe.

It's bad enough that ravioli on it's own has a lot of calories from carbs and a lot of times fat found in cheese, but you don't need to add a heart clogging Vodka sauce to make it taste good. My husband loves ravioli in vodka sauce, so I found a ravioli filled with lobster instead of cheese and decided to make my own vodka sauce with the following recipe.

Vodka Sauce

•  1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon of flour
• 1 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 small shallots, minced  (or one large onion)
• 1/2 cup white wine * (although the alcohol will be cooked off, I preferred using a lighter alcohol so as not to impart such a strong taste to the sauce)
• 1/4 cup chicken stock
• 1/2 cup tomato paste
• Coarse salt and pepper
• 3/4 cup non fat milk

Method

1. Melt butter in a pan and cook flour  shallots/onions and garlic in it till onions slightly caramelize.
2. Gradually add little amounts of milk to the flour mixture till it thickens. (You're making a bechamel here.) Do this with the remaining milk, then add the tomato paste, chicken stock, and wine gradually.
   Note: if you find that your sauce is too runny or not thickening anymore, stop adding liquids and/or add a little amount of flour to it until the right consistency is reached.
3. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Toss with your cooked Ravioli and enjoy! Guiltless!



Brandied Cherry-Choc-Chip Ice Cream (Healthified!!)

I can't get enough of this Ice Cream, and you'll see why when you try it.

It's delicious and amazing and you'll want to get drunk off it instead of your friday night beers and wines.

This ice cream had a great combination of creamy smoothness with crunchy chocolate and chewy sour cherries.

Ingredients

150g sugar

1 tsp xanthan gum (you can buy this at any health food store or specialty supermarket)

500g non-fat milk

60g honey (or 100g trimoline if you are lucky to have it at home, most people don't)

1/2 scraped vanilla bean

250g non fat greek yogurt *

250g non-fat cream cheese *

112g brandied cherries **

112g Semi sweet chocolate coarsely chopped

*If you don't care about the calories as much, replace the yogurt and cream cheese for 500g of mascarpone cheese (now this is a killer combo.. amazing! But for purposes of healthifying, let's stick to the nonfat yogurt and cream cheese.

** If you can't find brandied cherries (they are really hard to find) get any jarred sour cherries (not the candied cherries you put on a sundae, those are entirely different!) I use Trader Joe's Morello Cherries

When I buy them I rinse them under the water to get rid of that syrup (it's bad for you so resist the urge to drink the juice in the jar) and rinse out the jar. Then I put the clean cherries back in the jar and fill the jar with Kirsh Brandy.

This is very potent alcohol, one wiff can have you gasping. If you are making this for young children don't put kirsh in the cherries since the alcohol will not get cooked off. Use rinsed out cherries instead.

Leave the cherries to soak in the brandy for as long as you want. Then chop up however much you need to put in the ice cream. (Use the rest for black forest cake!)

Preparation:

1. Mix all the ingredients,  except the chocolate and cherries, in a blender and blend for 2 minutes.
2. If the mixture is still cold after blending, you can put in the ice cream machine right away, if not, chill for 30 minutes.
3. When the ice cream has thickened and reached a soft serve consistency, fold in the chocolate and cherries and freeze till set.
   
   Easy as 1-2-3 isn't it? But now let me tell you about the chocolate sauce on top...

Warm Chocolate Sauce

250g non-fat milk

60g sugar

30g butter (or better yet, a butter substitute such as: I can't believe it's not butter, or smart balance)

150g semi sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

Bring milk and sugar to a boil. Stir in butter and chocolate and continue cooking till it boils again. Stir continuously so as not to burn the chocolate. Refrigerate if not using right away and reheat however much you need just before serving.