Pool side meals, summer fun

     I know what everyone is thinking brats, burgers and hot dogs cooked on the grill plenty of sides and some cool drinks. And truly many of those meals fill my summer fare but when I bring dinner it has to be a bit more fun and hopefully, healthy. My brother-in-law does a nice job of keeping the pool in good shape for all the family so once in awhile I make dinner and bring it over when I swim. Tonight I am making chicken salad stuffed tomatoes and potato salad. The secret to good potato salad is cooking the potatoes a day ahead. Refrigerate so the potatoes are nice and cold when you begin.The one thing I am always asked is how I keep my potatoes so nice and firm. A lot of people make the potato salad all at one time and the warm potatoes have a tendency to mush when the ingredients are added. The chilling process avoids this from happening. Before I begin the dish I hard boil some eggs. While they are cooking I cut my potato into chunks. I season with celery salt and ground pepper and cover the potatoes with yellow mustard. The eggs are cooked and rinsed in cold water. I chop up same fresh celery and peel and dice the eggs and add to my potatoes. Now it is time to toss everything together with mayonnaise to the desired moisture. A quick taste to adjust the seasoning and refrigerate until you are ready to serve.

     Now to the chicken salad. I also use fresh celery in this dish so I dice some more before I clean up from the potato salad. I admittedly cheat a bit on the chicken as I love those roasted chickens you can get at the supermarket. With one chicken I have one nice meal with vegetable and potato the first evening and then I get creative with the rest of the chicken. Saving the bones for soup I remove the rest of the meat and dice it up for my chicken salad. Combining it in a mixing bowl with the celery I season with ground pepper and celery salt. Adding some capers I toss with mayonnaise and taste to adjust the seasoning. Refrigerating this until I am ready to serve I prepare my tomato for stuffing. Summer is the perfect time to eat stuffed tomatoes because the tomatoes are fresh and flavorful. I begin with a nice garden fresh tomato and cut  it into eighths opening it into a star shape.  I scoop the chicken salad into the middle of the tomato. A generous scoop of potato salad finishes the plate and the meal is ready to serve poolside. Summer fun in the company of food.