Red Potato and Asparagus Salad

I think we can all agree on one thing: if you have a baby under 4 weeks and/or under 6 lbs, you should not have to cook your own Easter supper.

A committee of Very Serious Intellectuals agreed on that principle last week, so today I needed to make a side dish. You can see how that happened. Although Easter suppers are not exactly my specialty, Miriam came to the rescue with a potato salad chock full of veggies, herbs, and spring flavor. Naturally, I messed with it.

Ingredients for the salad:

• 24 small new red potatoes (this was one bag of the organic ones at the store), about 2-3lbs.
  
• about 2 Tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 lb. fresh asparagus
• 1/2 cup sliced or slivered almonds, toasted (I used sliced, toasted them in my toaster oven, which took 4 minutes exactly) (after I burned the first batch)
  
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh mint or basil (I used mint, and it was all the contents of one of those plastic boxes)
  
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 400.
• Put the potatoes into a baking dish (I used a 13" Pyrex lasagna pan) with the olive oil. Salt and pepper the potatoes.
  
• Roast between 25 and 35 minutes, so they are tender when pierced with a knife. Try to avoid over-cooking, because they'll squish in the salad if they're too soft.
• Prep the asparagus: cut off the tough ends, then bring about 2 inches of water to the boil in a big frying pan. Cook the asparagus 3-4 minutes. DO NOT OVERCOOK BECAUSE THAT WILL BE NASTY. Shock them (plunge into ice water), then drain and let them dry off on a kitchen towel. Cut them into 2-inch lengths.
• Mince the garlic, chop the herbs, get the nuts ready. Mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl.
  

OK, here's where I messed with the recipe. Originally, as printed in the Williams Sonoma Entertaining Cookbook, it called for making a warm sauce of chicken stock (1 cup) and 1/4 cup of olive oil. You'd heat the potatoes, add the asparagus and everything else, then serve warm.

That's no good for me. I need a cold dish that can stay crunchy and delish tomorrow for my peeps. So... I improvised.

Make a vinaigrette. I got out my Mark Bittman, but then realized I had a bag of Penzey's Greek seasoning. I whipped up a batch of that (2T seasoning, 1/2 cup oil, 1/3 cup red wine vinegar, 1T sugar, stirstirstir), and used about 2/3 of it in the salad. Add salt and pepper to taste. Eh voila! Delish. It's tart, it can be eaten cold or at room temp (technically you could warm it up, too), it's pretty and seasonal and healthy. I used the rest of the dressing as a marinade/baking sauce for some chicken breasts and let me tell you: yum.

Thanks, Miriam.