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NOTE: I think I’ve written about this elsewhere, but search isn’t finding it today.

If you like beef liver, Skylark has a great little frozen 16 oz. package. It costs from $4-6 depending upon where you get it. I’ve bought it at both Food Lion and Walmart, and see that Publix is also supposed to have it, but the same package is a little more expensive there. There are 4 individually wrapped packages (4 oz.) in the 16 oz. package. *I know from experience, that it lasts a long time in the freezer, and still comes out good. I had bought a package of this, don’t recall from where, and had it in my freezer for probably more than a year. I was unaware that there were four individually wrapped packs of liver in the one 16 oz. package. When I saw this, finally, I took out one pack to thaw. *I’ve found a frozen pack will thaw in about an hour and be ready for cooking, which only takes about 3 or 4 minutes total. Just cut one end of the single serving pack and hold up the other end over your frying pan and it just slips out easily and starts cooking. Flip the slice in about 3 minutes and the other side cooks quickly.

I like liver. I like beef and calves liver, and chicken livers (and gizzards). Fry up some onions in the same pan, and maybe have garden peas and some mashed potatoes as sides.

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A couple of days ago I ate at Smithfield’s Chicken-n-BBQ. I had a BBQ plate with slaw and potato salad as my sides. I’ve noted this before, that the potatoes in the potato salad are mostly mashed in texture, not diced or chunks of potato. I don’t like mushy potatoes in dishes or soups, but I do like mashed potatoes.

So, a day or so later, at home, I thought about German Potato Salad, and I thought why not try mashing the potatoes instead of leaving them as chunks. I don’t think of German Potato Salad (or American Potato Salad for that matter) as not being chunky. That way you get a vinegar & sweetener coated chunk of potato which also has a little, pure potato center. My mind repulsed at the thought of mashing the potatoes for German Potato Salad, but it also logically told me, “You like the flavors, its just the texture you are ‘bawking’ at.”

So, I had a couple of small potatoes that I peeled and then diced, and then boiled until they were soft. And then the unnatural act, for me, I poured a little red wine vinegar and some sweetener on the potatoes and then mashed them. Surprisingly, the potatoes took the consistency of mashed potatoes (when you use margarine & half-n-half), although a slightly more pinkish hue. I sauteed some small diced onion in bacon grease until they began to take on burnt edges. I also fried a couple of pieces of bacon in the microwave. Then I mixed all of it together and tasted it. *It was good, after all it had all of the ingredients that I love in German Potato Salad. It was however, German Potato Salad Mashed Potatoes. This would be good wherever you might normally eat German Potato Salad… fried pork chops perhaps.

Recall that I fixed some mashed potatoes to which I had added some steamed, chopped asparagus. Strangely, I loved this combination, but I had no desire to eat the left-overs. Well here are two variations on a potato side dish.