More Cheese More Chocolate

It’s nearing the end of July, and I don’t feel like I’ve had anything resembling a proper summer.  I’ve all but forgotten about all of the great foods that come with summer barbecues because instead of dreaming up dishes to make for dinner I’ve been scraping together anything that’s quick, easy, and only requires ingredients that can be found in my cupboards or freezer.  After several hours of studying, the last thing I want to do is to come home to my steamy apartment and slave over a hot stove for an hour.  That’s a lie.  I’d actually really like to do that, but I guilt myself into thinking that I should be doing other constructive things to prepare myself for the bar instead of running to the grocery store or creating piles of dirty dishes.  Then I zone out and watch YouTube videos or read Jezebel or crank out dozens of push ups.  Seriously.  Seventy-five of them in one day.  How do you like them apples?

I can only hold myself back from cooking for so long, though.  Something made me think of potato salad last week, and I’ve been wanting to make it ever since.  Not gloppy, mayonnaise-laden potato salad.  Potato salad with bacon.  And barbecue sauce.  I made a version of barbecue sauce & bacon potato salad a few years ago, and every time I’ve thought about making it again I remember that I lost the recipe.  I realize that it’s 2010 and Google exists, but every search yields thousands of recipes for similar recipes that are not quite the recipe, and I don’t feel like looking through pages and pages of results in hopes of finding it.  Sometimes I’m really lazy (but did I mention that I did 75 push ups the other day?), but the allure of potatoes + bacon + barbecue sauce finally got the best of me.  I broke down, did a little googling and found a promising recipe from Food + Wine that will serve as a fine stand-in until the original recipe resurfaces.

Potato Salad with Bacon and Barbecue Sauce

I would recommend reducing the mayo by at least 1/4 cup and slightly increasing the amount of barbecue sauce.  I also added some hard-boiled eggs and a little extra celery because I felt like it.

Cleaning out my bacon stash from the freezer.

I could have stopped here and had what looked like a giant bowl of patatas bravas for dinner.  With a side of bacon.  Hard to argue with that.

But I kept going, and I ended up with this.  It went well aside the first ear of sweet corn I’ve had this year.  One week from now it will actually feel like summer and I will be free.  Hooray!

And just for fun, here’s a photo of some bozo who stopped his car in the middle of the street outside of my apartment to run around, block traffic, and yell at his passengers.  I keep going back and forth on whether I’m going to miss moments like this when I move out or if I will enjoy the peace and quiet.  I really like watching dumb people do dumb things, so I think I’m going to go with the former.