Since I decided to jump into a No (Low) Spend November without any kind of preparation, I’m going to have to get a bit creative this month. We are going to Hawaii in a week, so I’m going to be doing my very best to spend as little as possible while we’re home so we can spend a little more while we’re there.
Keeping our food budget as close to zero this month as I can will be my best way to complete this challenge I’ve put on myself, so I decided to get creative when planning a meal for the monthly neighborhood dinner that we attended this last week.
The neighborhood party was absolutely fabulous. There were five families with a total of ten kids in the house ranging from 5 months – 14 years old and they had a great time running around together. And the best part was, when it was time to go home, all we had to do was walk up the street.
There weren’t many children in the neighborhood when we bought our home 6.5 years ago but there are a lot more now. I’m hopeful that as we grow these friendships, our son will have a childhood where he can roam the neighborhood with his friends and walk down the street for a sleepover.
Since this dish was for a gathering with people I hope to be friends with for a long time, I wanted to make sure it was a good dish, not just a cheap one. The family hosting decided on hot dogs and hamburgers as a main dish, so I thought potato salad made an expedition addition to that spread.
I have never liked potato salad, but like Brussels sprouts, I’ve found that the difference is in the preparation and it can actually be quite good. This is a delicious recipe and one that can be easily tweaked based on what you have in your pantry. This was the selling point for me since I’m trying to spend very little money for the month of November.
Spicy Pickled Potato Salad
(Serves 12 as a side dish at 35¢/serving)
Ingredients:
- 1.5lbs (appx 5) medium Yukon gold potatoes $0.75 (or free from the garden)
- 2 pickled* eggs, diced $0.60
- 1/3 cup pickles, diced $0.30
- 1 cup mayonnaise $0.99
- 1 TBSP candied jalapeños, finely diced $0.20
- 3 cloves garlic $0.25 (or free from garden)
- 2 small sweet onions $1.00 (or free from the garden)
- 1/4 cup Dijon mustard $0.75
- 1 TSP vinegar $0.02
- 1 TSP sugar $0.03
- 1 TSP pepper $0.05
- 1TSP sea salt $0.05
- 2TSP smoked paprika $0.27
*You can use regular hard boiled eggs but I like the added flavor from the picked eggs. I used pickled quail eggs (5 of them) because that’s what I had on hand.
Directions:
- Chop potatoes in half (leave on the skin) and boil until soft but not mushy. You don’t want them to fall apart.
- Dice potatoes and mix with the rest of the ingredients.
- Refrigerate potato salad before eating. I would recommend the day before to really allow for the flavors to blend, but as long as it’s cold, it’s ready to eat.
This sounds delicious. Does it matter how the eggs are pickled?
I would go with a standard or spicy pickled egg to not add extra flavors, but you could also just use plain hard boiled eggs too if you don’t have any pickled ones.
I enjoy the challenge of coming up with meals with whatever we happen to have on hand. My wife, who loathes cooking, will often say we have no food in the house. When I hear these words the hair on the back of my neck stands up, challenge excepted! I have yet to fail to produce at least a decent, if not outstanding meal out of “nothing”.
Good luck with the rest of your No(low) spend November. Enjoy Hawaii!
We always have SO MUCH food in the house but sometimes there’s “nothing” that seems to make a normal dinner. Those days are fun because you have to get creative!
Thank you! It will definitely be a challenge to keep it up on the trip because of all the food we will want to eat 🙂
I am loving these food articles w price per serving breakdown! Keep it coming! Also, super jealous of your neighborhood….
Thanks for the reminder that I haven’t written one of these in a bit! And yeah, our neighborhood is basically the best ever.