My Best Ever Potato and Rice Salad Recipes

Well I hope all of you that are into football - not Rugby - have recovered from Saturday's excitement. We happened to be staying in Geelong and besides many cars driving around tooting their horns it was relatively quiet where we were staying.

So with the start of daylight savings arggh !!!!!!!!!!!!!!. I hated as a kid, I hated when my girls were babies and I hate it as an adult why do we need an hours extra heat of an evening when all we won't is cool to rest and sleep. Never mind I will just have to put up with it till it eventually finishes.

Now to cooking I must admit being away for the weekend I haven't done much, but I am planning recipes for this week. Miss Fish likes to know not only what she is eating today but also the days following which can be a bit tiresome when you haven't given it any thought.

I thought today I might give a couple of my favourite salad recipes that I make all the time, in

the vain hope that this nice sunny weather continues.

Potato Salad

1 kg potatoes cut into 3 cm pieces, 4 eggs, 3 rashers of bacon - cut into bite size pieces

Dressing - 1/4 cup each parsley and mint finely chopped, 3/4 cup greek yoghurt, 3/4 cup mayonnaise

Mix together in a small bowl.

Marinade - 2 tbsps good extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp champagne or white wine vinegar, 2 tsps dijon mustard

Whisk together in a bowl large enough to hold the potatoes.

Place the potatoes in the bottom of a large saucepan, sit the eggs on top. Bring to the boil, and boil till tender, but still firm. Approx 12 - 15 minutes.

Drain remove eggs and place into a bowl and cover with cold water. Immediately place hot potatoes into the large bowl and carefully stir to cover with marinade. Leave till cool.

While the potatoes are cooking cook the bacon in a frypan till slightly crispy around the edges remove and drain on paper towel.

When the potatoes have cooled, peel the eggs and chop into a 1 cm dice or slice finely. Add most of the egg and bacon, I retain some to put on top of the salad decoration. Add the dressing to the potatoes, the best way to mix everything together is a bit messy but you won't break up your potatoes is by using yours hand to carefully coat all the potatoes with the dressing and mix through the eggs and bacon.

Place into a serving bowl and decorate with the saved bacon and egg.

Rice Salad

2 cups raw rice, 1 medium carrot grated, 1/2 stalk celery finely sliced, 1 very small can corn kernels drained, 2 tbsps fresh parsley finely chopped

Dressing - 2 tbsps each extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar, freshly ground salt and pepper.

Mix together in a small bowl.

Cook the rice as you would normally. Place in to a bowl to cool to room temperature. When at room temp add salad ingredients and dressing, you need to do this when the rice is still slightly warm for it to absorb the flavours of the dressing. Taste you may need more vinegar or salt and pepper.