Warm German Potato Salad

When your household shrinks to two it becomes difficult to cook without fixing enough food to feed an army. Over the past six months or so, or around the time Andy retired, we started cooking heavy meals on Sunday night to avoid having to cook so much through the week. Granted, this was supposed to free up time to do other activities, like walking when I got home from work. Well, let's just say we have fallen a little short. I'm okay with eating something left over but I sure do not want to eat it multiple times in a row.

Well Sunday rolls around and then the next thing you know I'm heading back to work on Monday, Tuesday disappears like a lost puppy and on Wednesday I'm picking up Momma to do her little grocery shopping, come back to our house to eat and watch a movie and before you know it, it's Thursday night. Thursday night is the night we're planning what we will be eating every night over the weekend. It seems like a never ending vicious cycle.

I've had German Potato Salad on my mind for months. I'm not going to say this recipe is the one I remember eating twenty or thirty years ago. I will find that original recipe at some point. I found "The BEST Warm German Potato Salad (with bacon)" from the FIVEheartHOME.com website and thought it was probably close to what I remember eating.

It was really good. Andy took the first bite and asked me if I had it on the blog yet. Seriously? I have to "Oliver Douglas my porch pole" to get one bar to send a text. If you're too young to know what the heck I am talking about...watch Green Acres to put it in context.

INGREDIENTS:
Two pounds red potatoes (I picked the smallest I could get)
12 ounce pack thin sliced bacon, fried & chopped
Reserved bacon grease
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
3 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. spicy mustard
Salt and pepper to taste
1 Tbsp. Lawry's course ground garlic salt*
1 bunch of fresh parsley, chopped

I was out of minced garlic and substituted with garlic salt. I plan to use minced garlic the next time.*

Last Sunday morning I got up and fried two packages of thin bacon and saved the grease. One was for breakfast and the other was for this recipe. Here is a perfectly good example of why you should never throw away bacon grease. You might want to fix this up one day on the fly but you don't have a lot of time OR you hate to stink up the house with bacon. Get some of the pre-cooked and pull out your tub of grease and there you go!

DIRECTIONS:
Chop up (in healthy-sized chunks, not bits) 12 oz. of bacon.

Chop up one bunch of parsley.

 In a large pot, cook two pounds of red potatoes in salted water until they are fork-tender. 

Drain the water well and set the pot back on the stove on no heat.

 In a skillet heat up around 1/4 -1/2 cup of bacon grease. I thought I had too much at first but those potatoes soaked it up nicely. Carefully add in the apple cider vinegar and spicy brown mustard. Whisk until it's nicely blended.

 Stir in the garlic salt, pepper and bacon and blend.

 Next comes the chopped parsley. I just rough chopped this and it worked out great.
The hot potatoes made it wilt quickly.

Pour that yummy, tangy dressing over everything and make sure it all gets nicely coated.

Transfer the hot, steaming potato salad to a bowl and enjoy!