Daring Kitchen Challenge - Potato Salad

Blog-checking lines: Jami Sorrento was our June Daring Cooks hostess and she chose to challenge us to celebrate the humble spud by making a delicious and healthy potato salad. The Daring Cooks Potato Salad Challenge was sponsored by the nice people at the United States Potato Board, who awarded prizes to the top 3 most creative and healthy potato salads. A medium-size (5.3 ounce) potato has 110 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium and includes nearly half your daily value of vitamin C and has more potassium than a banana!

For this months challenge, I actually came up with 4 different potato salad recipes. We then invited our friends Sandy and Jason over for dinner and asked them to vote on their favorite.  We were all unanimous in our choice for the best tasting.  Petit Pois Pesto Potato Salad.  Not only was it the tastiest, everyone felt that it was the most creative and the healthiest.


Pesto:

Ingredients

1 cup Green Peas
1/2 cup Fresh Basil
1/3 cup Grated Parmesan cheese
2 Cloves Garlic
Salt
Pepper
4 Tbsp Olive Oil*

Add all ingredients except olive oil to food processor and blend.  Slowly drizzle in oil while food processor is running, till a smooth paste is formed.

*additional olive oil may be required if Pesto is too thick.

Salad:
New Gold Potatoes
Diced Red Pepper
Grape Tomatoes
Snap Peas cut in half
Stalks Asparagus
*quantities will depend on how big of a salad you want.

Boil potatoes in skins until tender; cool and cut into bite size chunks.

Cut Asparagus into 1 inch lengths, blanch and cool.
Mix potatoes, tomatoes, snap peas and asparagus together.  Add in pesto - I only used 1/3 of the pesto for the amount of potatoes that I cooked.
Toss and serve.