With the beautiful weather we’ve been having, it’s time for potlucks, barbecues and picnics. This potato salad is my favorite thing to make for a potluck or BBQ, so when Eric’s mom invited us to one for his grandpa’s birthday, I immediately offered to provide the potato salad. I’m not usually able to eat very much mayo, and that’s typically what potato salad is full of. But this is a light, creamy version, that uses only a little mayo for the whole salad, the rest of the zing comes from lemon juice. Another option, if you want to completely cut out mayo is to use buttermilk instead. Every time I bring this potato salad people love it and get so excited to hear that it’s actually a healthy potato salad.

The kind of potatoes you can use for this salad are really flexible. This time around I bought a big bag of golden red potatoes because I have a barbecue one or more times a week for the next month, so I figured I need a lot of potatoes. When I make it at home I use the small red potatoes. The nice thing about red potatoes is that by leaving the skin on, you get some added color to the potato salad, as well as a good dose of Vitamin C, fiber and Potassium. I prefer the skin left on because I have a weird thing about textures in my food and if it’s too mushy, I can’t eat it. I leave the skins on in my mashed potatoes too. I’m weird that way!

This recipe is also incredibly affordable, I always have to factor in cost when bringing a dish somewhere. When it comes to potato salad, it’s cheaper and healthier to make your own. My husband used to work in the deli at a grocery store, and knowing what was put into the different food items they serve, he doesn’t eat them. The other nice thing about this is that it’s really flexible. I throw some peas in for added nutrition and color. I usually use dried herbs in it, but my mother in law has fresh ones at her place so I grabbed some when I got there. If I’m just making a small amount for the two of us, I use 4 small potatoes, only a TBS of mayo and a couple of lemon juice. Play around with it, it’s really hard to mess it up.

By the way, anyone have any secrets for keeping potatoes from going bad? We’re more of a rice household, so it seems like whenever I buy more than four potatoes at a time, I end up having to throw some away. Potatoes get NASTY when they go bad. Oh man, the first time I experienced it I was pet sitting and I thought the dog had peed on the bag of potatoes. But then it happened to me and I don’t have a dog! Try not to think about that as you make yourself potato salad

Lemony Potato Salad
serves 12
Ingredients

15 medium red potatoes
1 tsp kosher salt
1 cup frozen peas
1/2 cup mayonnaise
8 TBS lemon juice
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion
2 TBS fresh dill finely chopped or 2 tsp dried
4 stalks fresh chives finely chopped or tsp dried
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Instructions

Cut potatoes into 1 inch chunks. Fill a large pot with water and add 1 tsp kosher salt. Put the potatoes in and put on high heat. Allow to come to a boil and cook for about 25 minutes total or until potatoes are tender. During the last five minutes of cooking, add frozen peas to the boiling water.

Drain potatoes and peas in a colander. Dump into a large bowl and add remaining ingredients. Mix well with a wooden spoon, leaving chunky. Taste to see if you’d like additional lemon juice or herbs. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

Approximate cost per serving: $3.18!!!! I know, cheap! Getting such a big bag of potatoes helped with the cost.
Gluten Free/Vegetarian: Some mayonnaise is gluten free, and I also know there are vegan mayos out there. Read your labels!

SPAM, Eggs, and Rice is very popular in Hawaii and is great for breakfast, lunch, dinner or a snack! When Eric and I first started dating, he took me grocery shopping (I broke my arm on our first date and couldn’t drive) and as we walked in the store I shouted “SPAM!” My first reaction to the SPAM display was sticker shock, I remember it being much cheaper in Hawaii. My second reaction was “If that’s the sale price I’m getting 6 now!’ Eric laughed but quickly realized I was serious as I began using my good arm to drop cans on SPAM into the cart. He asked what on earth I would make with SPAM, and though I have lots of dishes I make with it, the first thing out of my mouth was “SPAM, Eggs and Rice!”

Every morning at Moanalua High School, I’d go down to our gym where the coach was cooking breakfast in the concession stand. I’d smell the fried SPAM and plunk down $1.50 to get a scoop of rice, a scrambled egg, and a slice of fried SPAM. (Sometimes, if I didn’t have money, I’d just get rice for 50 cents). Whenever I was heading to go surf, or making a long car trip (long is relative when you live on an island) I’d stop by a Loco Moco restaurant and get a big plate of SPAM, eggs and rice. So not only does this dish taste good, but I associate a lot of memories with it. It’s also really easy to make and Eric often chooses it if he’s the one cooking dinner.

Perhaps you’re wondering, “What is SPAM?” It’s a canned precooked meat, and yes it is pork so I can’t eat it more than a little once or twice a week, and while it’s perfectly safe to eat out of the can, to me it doesn’t taste good unless cooked. Although it’s high in protein, the recommended serving size contains 28% of your daily saturated fat and 1/3 of your daily sodium, so I never use as much as the recommend serving size. By combining it with other ingredients I’m able to stretch it to last longer (one can of SPAM makes 4 different meals for us) and be healthier. SPAM is a staple in Hawaii, it started during World War II when fresh meat was difficult to obtain. You’ll find SPAM, eggs and rice on the breakfast menu at many fast food restaurants in Hawaii like McDonald’s and Burger King. There are a lot of things you can make with SPAM including musubi, somen salad, and fried rice. I know it can be a little scary at first, but play around with this versatile cheap meat. Your wallet will thank you and so will your family (just maybe don’t tell them it’s SPAM until after they eat it, I do that to dinner guests all the time!) For more SPAM fun, check out Jaden’s Ode To SPAM!

SPAM, Eggs, and Rice
serves 2-3

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups cooked rice
1/4 cup Aloha shoyu (soy sauce)
1 TBS sugar
1 TBS fish sauce
2 TBS rice vinegar
2 slices SPAM 1/2 inch thick
2 eggs
2 TBS milk
salt and pepper

Instructions

Start your rice cooking first, I make 3/4 cup pre-cooked in my rice maker which takes 20 minutes, it’s the slowest part of this dish and yields 1 1/2 cups cooked rice.

Mix shoyu, sugar, fish sauce and rice vinegar in a bowl. Cut your slices of SPAM into 1/2 inch cubes and marinate in shoyu mixture. When rice has about 10 minutes to go, whisk eggs with milk, salt, and pepper.

Heat a skillet on medium high and pour eggs in. Scramble them and then put onto a plate. Place plate in the microwave to keep warm. Using a fork or slotted spoon, remove SPAM from marinade and cook in same skillet until a golden brown crust forms on the cubes. (Don’t dump marinade in, or as Eric discovered, it’s really salty!)

Scoop rice onto a plate and top with eggs and SPAM.

Approximate cost per serving: 1 Slice SPAM 15 cents, 1/2 cup cooked rice 15 cents, almost 1 egg 14 cents, marinade 2 cents TOTAL: 46 cents!

Finally! After hours of research to get all the links, editing photos, writing captions and going through my notes, here’s the photo post on my weekend at the International Food Blogger’s Conference. I of course couldn’t cover absolutely everything, but there will be more in the video that I hope to get edited soon. I only have so many hours in the day, and sadly this is not my job that pays the rent (Maybe one day!). So, on to the Sanctuary at Admiral.

The grounds were absolutely beautiful, and since the weather was perfect, we got to really enjoy their beauty. There were flowers, trees, shrubs, bamboo, herbs and even a giant rhubarb plant. I actually started my love for photography with flowers. I’m glad, it really helped me learn my macro setting which is a big help for food photography.

This is the front entrance. Apparently this used to be a Christian Science church and then the current owner renovated it to be her home. Now it’s used as a beautiful space for weddings, parties, and food blog conferences!

The first panel of the IFBC was blog to book, about getting published. On the panel was Kirsty Melville a cookbook publisher for Andrews McMeel Publishing, Molly Wizenberg of Orangette, and Jaden of Steamy Kitchen. I learned a lot about the publisher’s side from Kirsty as well as the 4 P’s: Persistance, Passion, Platform, and Personality. This panel was really entertaining and informative, I have pages and pages of notes!

For the panel on finding your voice we had quite a neat group of ladies. There was James Beard award winning journalist Rebekah Denn, Kathleen Flinn author of “The Sharper Your Knife the Less You Cry”, and Julie Brosterman of Women and Wine. Julie shared a great tip on the importance of the 4 Rs, Relevance, Reliability, Resource and Reputation. I’ve really been thinking about wanting the voice for my blog to be strong and consistant so this was a great panel for me. Unfortunately I didn’t get pictures of the photography or technology panels but you’ll see some of them in the video still to come.

Here is Ruth Reichl, another highlight of my weekend. She is such an accomplished woman, very calm and yet quite a commanding presence. It was a pleasure to hear her talking about what she learned about her mother and one thing I took from it is to ask my mom all the questions I have about her life NOW, before it’s too late. Thank you Ruth for your words of encouragement, I will always remember meeting you and how you touched my heart.

One of the most fun times of the weekend was a little after party Jaden hosted in her and Elise’s hotel room at the Four Seasons. The room was gorgeous, and Jaden completely spoiled us. The company was wonderful and it was fun to get to know Elise a little and connect with some other new friends. Look for more of this night in the video.

Jaden did a sake tasting for us as promoter (I think) for Vine Connections sake distribution. I tasted a little of the Tozai snow maiden and was very impressed with how smooth it was. It went great with the sashimi.

Jaden seriously hooked us up with appetizers. We had incredible sashimi, sushi, something with chicken liver, and those breaded things are giant crabcakes! Oh man did I eat good that night. Thanks Jaden!

On Safari Foods provided breakfast on Sunday morning, and what an amazing breakfast it was. We’re talking incredible. Unfortunately…

…I was so excited to eat that all I really got a picture of was their giant tray of fresh fruit!

The panel on blogging as a career was really informative. The panelists were Elise of Simply Recipes, Amy of Cooking with Amy, and Jaden of Steamy Kitchen. All three of them approach their careers very differently and had really great ideas of how to make money through your blog, or use your blog as a calling card, or do a combination of both.

The panel on ethics and law was both interesting and confusing. I took a TON of notes. We had Kraig Baker with Davis Wright Tremaine, Kim O’Donnel of the Washington Post, and Tracy Sarich of Children’s Trust Foundation moderating. Not pictured is Barnaby Dorfman of Foodista. They talked about the ethics of reviewing things you got for free, and what kind of protection food bloggers have against theft, as well as what we can or can’t get into trouble for.

I already showed you most of Sunday’s lunch, but here’s the caviar all set up. Oh man it was gorgeous!

This is Mark Fuller from Spring Hill Restaurant and Bar in action. He has family from Hawaii so we’ll definitely have to stop by there sometime. Hawaii culture is all about supporting each other.

The final panel was Passionate Purveyors and boy are they all passionate! It was so exciting to hear them speak about what they’re doing in their passions. Aleco Chigounis of Stumptown Coffee Roasters is making a difference for coffee farmers in third world countries through direct trade. Lauren Adler of Chocolopolis talked about the astonishing health benefits of the darkest chocolate and the incredible variety available in chocolate. Carrie Oliver of Oliver Ranch talked about health benefits of grass only beef and how they can actually replenish the land. I can’t wait for an artisan steak tasting!

Karl Kupers of Shepherd’s Grain taught me a lot about sustainable farming. He talked about how farmers have lost their identities as food producers and the importance of reconnecting producers with consumers.

Finally meeting Jaden was a huge highlight for me. Her blog is what first inspired me almost two years ago to put my recipes on my blog. During IFBC she encouraged me so much about my desires for my blog and gave me some great advice. She is such an open, caring person and happily shares whatever wisdom and experience she has. I’m so excited to see her again in October!

This is Anne of Bring to Boil. I loved sitting near her, she always had great questions for the panelist, and we loved talking about food. We had fun doing a cheese tasting together and just talking about what the different cheeses were like. She takes stunning food photos and you have to check them out!

Yes, I know, my eyes are closed. But I couldn’t not post a picture with Carrie of Oliver Ranch and Annie of Phoo-d. Carrie and I have been internet buddies and Annie and I just met at the conference. To me this picture epitomizes the best part of the conference: Meeting friends I only knew online, and making new ones. It was so wonderful to be in the company of people who are passionate about food.

Here I am with the lovely Sheri Wetherell of Foodista. She is a complete delight and full of an incredible amount of energy. She ran drawings every break, one of which won me a set of 6 Forte Pinot Noir glasses. They’re gorgeous!

I know this picture’s a little blurry, but I had to show you the magnitude of what we got in our swag bags. I just dumped it onto the couch for Eric and I to go through. This is only about half of what somehow fit in the bag, I split it with someone else! I hear it was all worth over $700. Wow! Thank you so much to Sur La Table for hooking us up.

We also got food to take home, like two kinds of cheddar from the folks at Foodzie. Eric and I loved this one and it took real will power to not eat it all in one sitting. We just kept cutting off one piece after another.

The Kukuruza Gourmet Popcorn was way too addicting. When I got home, after lots of talking and gushing about the day, we popped in the press release of Fresh the Movie which was in the swag bag and began eating way too much of this popcorn. I got the S’more flavor which was basically caramel corn mixed with mini marshmallows, graham cracker chunks and chocolate. So glad we only had a small bag or we’d be huge! By the way, the movie was fascinating and I will be recommending it to a lot of people.

Eric was the most excited about the Kyocera ceramic knife (which came with a ceramic mandolin by the way). He now chops, slices and dices anything for me when I’m cooking. He also loves the little cutting board which we’ve discovered is small enough to just keep in our drying rack and have handy for chopping and scooping anything.

One of my favorite things in the bag was the biggest cookbook I’ve ever owned, it’s like the Bible of baking! I’m so excited to read through it and play around with it. I think it’s too heavy for me to read in bed though!

It was an incredible weekend and I came away encouraged, inspired and full of excitement to follow my dream and jump into the food world head first. There will be some big changes around here soon, and they’re all for the better! Thank you so much to Foodista for an incredible conference, I can’t believe it was put together in a couple months! Thanks to Jen Lamson for doing a ticket share with me and being so generous so I could get to go. Thanks to Traca for being the Queen of connections and showering love on everyone! Thanks to my wonderful husband for being okay with me galavanting around for a weekend while he did housework, he’s the best! Can’t wait til next year

I have more coverage of the International Food Blogger’s Conference coming soon. Monday’s post will be a complete set of photos, along with some of my notes of the highlights. The video will take a little while to work on but I’m having a lot of fun putting it together. To tide you over I want to share our dinner from last night with you. The steak was alright, mostly just trying to use up what’s in our freezer. The real stars of the meal were the corn on the cob and tomato slices crusted with parmesan and panko. Corn on the cob is a classic side dish, and it’s kind of surprising how many bad ones I’ve had. I know a lot of people who’d rather do frozen or canned corn because they think it’s easier. But fresh corn on the cob tastes so much better, and is cheap too! I got two corn cobs for 15 cents each at a local farm stand.

To boil them, fill a large pot with water and mix in 1/4 cup of sugar. Peel the husk and silk off of your corn. When the water is boiling, carefully drop the corn in and set a timer for 8 minutes. When time is up, remove the corn with tongs and rub each one with a butter stick. Sprinkle with a little salt and you have perfect corn on the cob!

I also got some beautiful big hothouse tomatoes from the farmstand. Eric was happy to help me prepare dinner by slicing the tomatoes (he also schucked the corn) because he loves the Kyocera Ceramic Knife that was part of my amazing goody bag from the IFBC! Every meal now he offers to slice, dice or chop anything I need. The tomato was 50 cents and so juicy and plump. I didn’t realize until after Eric sliced the tomato and I’d mixed the breading mixture that we were out of eggs! Because the tomatoes are so moist, it still worked, but I really had to kind of rub the breading into them. It is easier with egg, but if you’re out too, you can still make it!

I get my parmesan in a big container and put a little in a tupperware in my fridge, then freeze the rest. When you’re trying to save money your freezer is your best friend! It’s so much better to be able to buy things in bulk that freeze well. I love using Panko for breading anything because it has such a nice light crispiness to it. Panko can be a little expensive for the size of the box (it will be cheaper in an asian grocer than your regular grocery store) but I use it lightly and often mix it with other things (like parmesan) to stretch it. Have fun with the breading seasonings. If you love garlic you can add some more garlic powder, or if you hate onions, leave it out! This is a really flexible recipe.

Parmesan Crusted Tomato Slices

serves 4-6

Ingredients

1 large tomato

1 egg

1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan

1/2 cup Panko breadcrumbs

1 tsp Italian seasoning

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp onion powder

4 TBS olive oil

Instructions

Slice the tomato into 1/4 inch thick slices. Remove the seeds from the slices. Crack the egg into a bowl and mix well. In a separate bowl mix parmesan through onion powder.

Heat 2 TBS of the oil in a frying pan on medium high. Dip tomato slices in first the egg, then the parmesan mixture, coating both sides. Place in frying pan and fry until each side is golden brown (about 3 minutes). Remove cooked slices to a paper towel lined plate. Add more oil to the pan as needed.

Approximate cost per serving (4oz steak, one corn cob, 1/4 tomato): under $3

Gluten Free/Vegetarian: The two sides are vegetarian (obviously the steak isn’t!), panko is NOT gluten free, but you can substitute crushed gluten free rice chex.

Hey friends, I’m at the IFBC right now, and boy is it awesome! I will give you some major coverage eventually, but I have lots to process, and a video to put together, and we’re just starting the next session so here’s a sneak peak at our lunch today.

Jordan Mackey from Six Seven At The Edgewater had an amazing serving of caviar. That was definitely the best part of lunch for me and I was so excited to see him setting it up.

Mark Fuller from Spring Hill is from Hawaii, I knew I’d like him! He served grilled albacore nicoise, miners lettuce, green bean, potato crackling, olive salt, and a soft boiled egg. I had to go back for seconds because although my egg and albacore were delicious, the salad was so salty I actually gagged. I think it must have accidentally been salted twice. My second plate was perfectly seasoned and I absolutely loved it.

I can’t say enough about the freshness and delicious quality and flavor of the food from Keith Luce of The Herbfarm. Above is This Morning’s Egg from the Herbfarm Hens, soft scrambled and garnished with Pastrami Cured Sockeye Salmon, and Smoked Quinault Indian Steelhead Caviar.

Their (Herbfarm’s) butter was just churned and so wonderful, I slatherd it on. It was great with the fresh pulled breakfast radishes (very mild taste, not what I expected) and Sitka Alaska Sea Salt.

Keep your eye out over the next week for lots more info, and check out #IFBC on Twitter, or http://ifbc.foodista.com for podcasts and a live feed.