Potato Salad Poppers

I normally buy loose fresh produce, but every once in a while, my local grocery store has a deal on Simply Spuds Steamables Potatoes, so I can't resist. They are small potatoes that come in a microwavable steamer bag. The first time I bought them, I followed the instructions on the package for time and pretty much ended up with a potato puree. I now make sure to nuke them for less time than called for.

When I stopped at the store to pick up avocados for my Guacamole Pasta Salad, I saw that the Steamables were on sale again, so I grabbed a bag of red and a bag of yellow. I didn't have a dinner plan in mind and never ended up getting a protein to pair them with, so I decided to go in a different direction and made these cute little party bites.

You can, of course, use your own preferred potato salad recipe. For this batch, I used some petite diced sweet onion, celery, dill pickle, baby cucumber, fresh dill, black pepper, and mayonnaise mixed with a bit of the pickle juice, reserving additional dill to sprinkle on top.

All you do is cook the potatoes until tender and let them cool, then take a sliver off the bottoms to allow them to stand without tipping over. Make another cut across the top, a quarter to a third of the way down, depending on how tall the potato is. Then use a small spoon (iced tea or demi dessert) to core out the center.  

To core the potatoes, hold them tightly to sort of compress the inside so it doesn't break. Insert the spoon into the potato, close to the edge, and push down until it almost reaches the bottom. Remove the spoon and insert into the next spot, and continue - working your way around the whole potato. That took four turns using my little demi-dessert spoon. Once you have worked your way around the whole potato, tip the spoon to get under the bottom and give it a twist to "pull the plug." You can do some "shaving" if you need to in spots to get closer to the edge, but this way, you will have a nice chunk of potato to be able to dice and won't end up with "mashed" potato salad.

Petite dice the slice you took off the top - with or without the skin - then dice the part you pulled out of the potato. Mix the potato with your other ingredients and spoon into your potato shells, sprinkling the additional dill over the top.