Hearty Potato Vinaigrette Salad

This is another recipe from Penzeys Spices. I was intrigued by the combination of ingredients and thought it was definitely worth a try. I made a half recipe, and the amounts I'm posting reflect that change. If you were making this as a meal in its own right (which Steve and I agree is a valid option for this salad), you might want to double the amounts I list.

Ingredients:
3 red potatoes (medium-sized), cut into 3/4-inch pieces (no need to peel them)
2-3 eggs, hard-boiled and peeled*
1/2 head lettuce or equivalent amount of greens, cleaned and torn into bite-size pieces
2 T. white vinegar
1 T. vegetable oil (I used canola)
1/2 T. sugar
1 T. butter (or olive oil if you want)
2 t. seasoned salt (the original recipe called for Penzeys' Northwoods Seasoning, which is what I used)
Chive blossoms (optional)

Cook the chopped potatoes in boiling water until tender (about 7 minutes). Mix vinegar oil, and sugar together, and toss the resulting vinaigrette with the lettuce. Put a serving of lettuce on each salad plate. Drain cooked potatoes and lightly break potato cubes with a fork or potato masher (I used a masher), but don't mash completely. Place equal amounts of potatoes on each lettuce bed. Add little pats of butter to each serving of potatoes, or drizzle olive oil over them if you absolutely can't use butter. (Alternately, toss the pats of butter with the potatoes in a bowl before dividing onto plates. This is what we did.) Slice the eggs and arrange the slices over the lettuce and potatoes. Sprinkle a little seasoned salt and, if desired, some chive blossoms on each serving. Ideally, serve while still warm. We ate it stone cold, but it was still good.

*You can boil the eggs while the potatoes are cooking if you like. I actually boiled them the day before and kept them in the fridge. What I usually do to hard-boil eggs is put them in a saucepan, cover them with cold water, and bring the water to boil over medium-high heat. Then I turn down the heat to medium-low and cook for another 12-14 minutes. Then I put the pan in the sink and run cold water into it until the water stays cold. To peel a hard-boiled egg, I tap it against the counter, turning as I tap, until there are cracks all over the shell. Then I gently roll the egg between my palms to loosen the shell and membrane from the egg white. Sometimes this works beautifully, and sometimes it's still frustrating to peel the egg. But it typically seems to help at least a bit.

Comments:
Steve and I were both surprised by how good this was. It's simple, and neither of us could exactly put our finger on what made it tasty, but there was no denying that it was, indeed, very tasty. Definitely repeatable.

There were way more potatoes than we could reasonably use on the salad, so I've edited the ingredients accordingly.