Overnight Potato Salad

12 eggs - hard boiled and shredded

12 cups shredded potatoes

1 1/2 cups onions diced

1 1/2 cups celery diced

Dressing:

3 cups salad dressing

3 Tbs. mustard

3 Tbs vinegar

1 3/4 cups sugar

4 tsp salt

Cook potatoes until almost done, but still firm. Cool.

Shred chilled potatoes and eggs with shoestring potato shredder. Add onions and celery. Mix remaining ingredients and pour over potatoes. Mix well. Let set overnight for flavors to blend.

Note: Chilling of potatoes is the secret to this recipe. If not chilled they will crumble instead of shredding into long firm strands.

Our family just returned from a Church History tour. One night we had a wonderful dinner at an Amish home in Ohio. The family served a chicken dinner with the above recipe of potato salad as one of their side dishes. I was intrigued with the texture of the potato salad. When I read the recipe I realized the different texture was from the potatoes being cut with a shoestring potato shredder. I"m now on the lookout for a shoestring potato shredder. Does anyone know where I can pick one up? Maybe at the local Amish shop?

When I get a chance to make this salad, I'm going to cook my potatoes in the oven. I'm also going to use Mayonnaise and not Miracle whip.

".....In the beautiful hills of Pennsylvania, a devout group of Christian people live a simple life without automobiles, electricity, or modern machinery. They work hard and live quiet, peaceful lives separate from the world. Most of their food comes from their own farms. The women sew and knit and weave their clothing, which is modest and plain. They are known as the Amish people...." Pres. James Faust April 2007 General conference.

The Amish family served all 50 of us from our tour in the sun room of their house.

Below is a picture I took of their family carriage.

To finish the story that Pres. Faust tells about the Amish community, click here.