Yesterday we made up this fantastic potato salad recipe, which contains cheddar cheese and bacon and a number of other yummy ingredients. Carrie Chestnutt Mess is a Wisconsin dairy farmer who blogs as Dairy Carrie, and this is her recipe. We did little except make it and  photograph it, but judging by the responses of yesterday’s guests, it is a real winner, we can’t wait to find an excuse to make it again.

This recipe calls for 5 lb of potatoes, and makes a really substantial amount of potato salad, but it is easy to cut it in half for smaller groups. Incidentally, using Costco’s Kirkland bacon, there are about 16 slices in a pound, so you need only eight slices for a half recipe.

• 5 lb unpeeled red potatoes, washed
• 1 large red/purple onion, roughly diced.
• 1 lb thick cut bacon, fried and crumbled
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 2 cups sour cream
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• ½ tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp Smoked Chipotle Tabasco sauce
• 2 Tb steak seasoning blend
• 2 tsp Worchester sauce
• Coarse ground salt and pepper
• Chives, diced for garnish

1. Put the potatoes in a pan and cover with water. If some of them are very large, cut them in half. Add salt. Cook over medium heat until just tender. Drain the potatoes, run cold water over them and drain them, allowing them to cool. (Do not leave them in the water as they will turn gluey.)
2. When the potatoes are cool, cut them into large cubes and place them in a large mixing bowl.
3. Add the diced onion, chopped bacon and the shredded cheese.
4. In another bowl, mix the sour cream and mayonnaise and add the seasonings. We didn’t have any “steak seasoning” in our cupboard but we looked at several recipes and made some up with ½ tsp garlic powder, ½ tsp onion powder, 1 tsp sweet paprika, ½ tsp red pepper, coarse salt and some ground pepper.

5. Add half the seasoned sauce to the bowl of potatoes and mix it all together with your hands or with a strong wooden spoon. If the potatoes don’t seem moist enough, add more of the sauce. We found it was easier to get the mixture uniform by dumping it into another bowl so the bottom of the potato mixture is on top. Then you can see how much more sauce you’ll need.

6. Put the potato salad in a serving bowl and surround it with lettuce.

7. Top with the chopped chives.

Chill and serve. They’ll love it!

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