Monday Meals With Mincie: Easter Eggs and Potato Salad

Potato Salad is a favorite way to use some of the abundance of colored Easter eggs in Mincie's family.

Easter, during my teenage years, always included a cookout at Mincie's and potato salad was an integral part of the meal.  While Mincie used my mother's recipe for potato salad, I still consider it a part of meals eaten there and feel it needs to be included with the rest of the recipes I associate with her.  Sadly, I couldn't find the recipe, and make mine until it tastes right, so the recipe included today is my best approximation of the potato salad Mincie made.

After last week's Meals With Mincie post, I was talking to my sister, Ann, who reminded me that when we were young the Easter meal was always spaghetti and it seemed like the only time all year that Gram made it.  The spaghetti was always served in two bowls - a large bowl filled with cooked spaghetti noodles and a slightly smaller bowl filled with a meaty marinara sauce, though back then we just called it spaghetti sauce.  Growing up, it was the only kind we knew.  I recall the meal also consisting of biscuits and baked potatoes, though my memory could be faulty.  Yes, I know it's a ton of starch for one meal, but it's what I recall.

Our Dad's younger brother, Mack, would mound his plate with spaghetti about as high as it would go, eat it all and go back for seconds.  The funny thing is, he was quite tall and thin and Ann always wondered where he put it all.

Mincie would also always make something that we could "eat out of hand" as she called it.  Many years it would be Texas Sheet Cake and, as we got older, it would often be Black Bottom Cupcakes.

Christine's Potato Salad
About 10 medium sized potatoes
2 boiled eggs
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 Tbsp. yellow mustard
1 Tbsp. dill pickle juice
2 dill pickle spears
1/4 cup white, sweet onion
2 stalks of chives

1)  Peel potatoes, dice them into approximately 1 inch cubes, cover with cold water, bring to a boil, and cook until tender.

2) Peel and chop the boiled eggs.

3)  Dice dill pickles and onions.

4)  In a mixing bowl, combine eggs, mayonnaise, mustard, dill pickle juice, dill pickles, and onions.  Set aside in the refrigerator until potatoes have cooled.

5)  Once potatoes are cooled, add to the egg mixture and stir until combined.

6)  Wash chives, then finely snip them over the top of the potato salad, using a pair of kitchen shears.