so the husband decided to save the fajitas for tonight's dinner. that means the beef has been marinating for close to 24hrs by the time i cook it. he made up the marinade yesterday and wouldn't let me see what he was doing. i know dried red pepper flakes went in there instead of jalapeños. tonight i'm going to cook the meat up with some sliced onions, pepper and mushrooms. i'm doing ranch sour cream to go with them.
ranch sour cream- dump some sour cream into a bowl and add some dried ranch powder. you know, the salad dressing powder you can get to mix your own at home. let it sit in the fridge for awhile so the flavor can develop.
for lunch today i had something different from my normal routine. i did a bake potato with sour cream, broc and cheddar cheese. we've got a load of potatoes that need using and still broc. sour cream never lasts more than a week so that needs to be used.   it was ok, something different like i said. i'm going to do a load of potato salad later which i will probably have for my dinner.

 potato salad. one of my most favorite things to eat. my mom makes some seriously delicious potato salad, i use her recipe but it never turns out as tasty. i think it's the salad dressing i use. i know it's more of a summery thing but i've got a huge bag of potatoes that need using up. i dug out 6 of the smallest ones that wouldn't be good for things like wedges.

potato salad
6 small potatoes- i use the misfit ones that i can't do much else with
2 hard boiled eggs
2 celery sticks diced
1 small onion diced fine
bottle of italian salad dressing- the oil and vinegar based kind with floaty bits in it
some apple cider vinegar
stone ground mustard
salt and ground black pepper
parsley flakes
mayo

ok, so i like to peel my potatoes before i boil them. do what you like but the potatoes need to boil until cooked but still on the firm side. over cook them and you're going to get mashed pots with weird stuff in it. when the potatoes are cooked but still firm, strain them and run them under cold water to get them cooled down quicker. this stops them cooking more while they cool. get them out of the cold water and strained off again. dump them into a large bowl. pour in a couple of good sized splashes of the italian salad dressing and about a cap full of cider vinegar. mix everything around so the potatoes are nice and coated, put in the fridge to chill for a few hours- you don't have to do that i just like to let the pots marinade and get totally cold before mixing with mayo
boil eggs. how do you boil an egg? i put the eggs in my sauce pot with some cold water. i turn the burner on and heat the water to boiling. i let the eggs boil for 5min, turn off the heat and cover the pot. i then let the eggs sit there for like 20min, usually longer because i tend to forget i was boiling eggs in the first place, oh well. when it's time i cool the eggs under cold water and then peel them. if i'm not going to use them right away i put them in a container with some water and put them in the fridge.
getting everything together. chop the veggies up and dump them in the potato bowl. i cut up the eggs- i ditch the yokes because i don't like egg yokes. you do what you like. dump the eggs in with the potatoes. sprinkle in your seasonings. if you're clever you'll mix the mustard and mayo in a little bowl before you add it to the potatoes. that way it's evenly distributed around your salad. usually i forget and end up with big mouthfuls of mustard. how much mayo and mustard? i used about 1tablespoon of mustard and 1/2cup of mayo. i like just enough to get everything stuck together but not swamped. mix into the potatoes, put into a container, cover and let chill in the fridge as long as possible. the longer it stays in the fridge the better it tastes.kind of like lasagna

note on the italian salad dressing thing: the americans will be all like- duh, laura of course the one with oil and vinegar with floaty bits, it's the only freaken kind on the shelf. well in england most italian salad dressing is this thick white shit with black specks in. it looks like paste with black pepper. the only 'proper' italian dressing i can find is kraft low fat italian, it's probably the reason my potato salad never tastes right.
oh and yes, i did eat that whole container of potato salad myself. i had it for dinner and then lunch the next day. shit is good, i'm not sharing.