Hope everyone had a nice weekend.  My weekend was uneventful but still nice. And I just now realized that this Friday is the 4th of July…. food and fireworks baby!!! I suddenly feel giddy again.

Over the weekend I roasted a tri-tip and wanted to have it with potatoes.  Now, I love creamy potato salad and I love creamy mayonnaise based potato salad, but this weekend I felt like making a light potato salad to pay homage to the  warm and wonderful summer weather.  After some searching on the web I found this recipe for Italian Potato Salad and it seem to be what I had in mind.  I did my usual modifications, mainly to adjust for a smaller serving size.

The potato salad came out to be exactly what I wanted.  Light, refreshing, and tasty.  I added fresh chopped basil, and instead of pepperoncini, I used pickles.  I think pepperoncini would have been fantastic if I had them,  but the pickles worked well.  Adding some salami would have be great also.
If you’re ever in the mood for light refreshing potato salad that uses olive oil instead of mayonnaise give this recipe a try, maybe this 4th of July? 🙂

Italian Potato Salad
4 medium potatoes
½ cup thinly sliced red onions
1/3 cup pepperccini peppers or chopped pickles

Dressing
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup red wine vinegar
2 tsp minced garlic
pinch salt and pepper
1/8 tsp dried basil
1/8 tsp dried oregano
pinch thyme
pinch red pepper flakes

¼ cup chopped fresh basil (optional)

• Mix together all ingredients for dressing.
• Clean and peel potatoes
• Cut into 1 inch cubes
• in a pot, cover with just enough water to cover potatoes
• Add about 1 tsp of salt
• Cover and bring to boil
• Once boiling, uncover and turn heat to medium
• Cook for another 5 minutes or until potatoes or tender
• Drain and move to bowl, add thinly sliced onions.
• In same pot on medium heat cook dressing till boiling.
• Once boilng turn off heat and pour over potatoes and onions
• Mix to incorporate.
• Add pickles and chopped basil

Season with salt and pepper to taste.