This is part 2 of the previous post, where we celebrated National Ice Cream Day and played Kitchen Rush! But we also had some delightful savory foods I wanted to talk about for Meatless Monday. For this dinner, it was time for our bi-monthly themed potluck, so we went with a Picnic food theme and did burgers, salads, watermelon, and more!

At a Glance…

Potato Salads

My mom’s potato salad is a classic in the Erwin household. I grew up with the stuff, and it is served multiple times a summer in our house, and one of my husband’s favorites as well. While the original recipe has eggs and real mayo, it’s quite easy to switch that to vegan mayo, and I find that tofu works well for the texture of mimicking eggs. You can even sprinkle it with some black salt for that egg-y flavor. My mom may still feel it’s a bit of an abomination to do this to her recipes, but hey, it’s as close as I can get to still experiencing that childhood nostalgia and taste while still being vegan.

It’s a simple combination of potatoes, mayo, eggs/tofu, pickles, pickle juice, salt, and pepper! The one thing I always forget to do is leave myself enough time for this. It makes a lot, and you really want to give yourself enough time for the potatoes to fully cook and cool, and then mix everything together to let it cool and marinate together. I recommend making it the night before if possible. And then enjoy for days to come! This is great for those really hot days when you don’t want to turn on your oven and don’t have a/c (looking at you right now Central Alberta…)

This Asparagus Avocado Potato Salad from Oh She Glows is quite a departure from the simplicity and purity of my mom’s potato salad. It’s got a lot more going on, but I love the combination of crunchy asparagus, creamy avocado, and dill. If you want a smaller recipe with more veggies and a unique flavor profile, definitely check this one out! There’s a similar recipe on Oh She Glows website, but it isn’t quite the same as the one I’m making here, which is found in her cookbook. (Get your here) This one doesn’t necessarily have to be made the day before, and is delightful warm or cool.

We also had friends who brought burgers and toppings, pulled “pork” quesadillas, fries, watermelon, and more. Paired with the ice cream, it was a fantastic feast for a summer day!

Planets & Meeples

I’d been wanting to play Whistle Mountain for a while now. It’s such an underrated gem that we don’t get to often enough. It’s got a unique worker placement / tile placement combo going on where you’re building your placement spots for everyone to use, but then as the water rises, those spots can sink and become unusable. You also have fantastic special abilities, cool components including blimps, and machines to give you even better actions. We first played this during COVID on Tabletopia, an online platform to play games that is very…life-like. You actually have to click on a piece and move it with your cursor, manipulate pieces, etc. in a very realistic but slightly clunky way. Anyway, we were about 2/3 of the way through the game when someone bumped something on the ‘board’, and all the ships, tiles, water, machines and everything just exploded all over the screen lol. We were like, well, I guess we’re done playing. Despite that, we got the gist of it enough to know we loved its potential, and have enjoyed it ever since!

Planet is of a very different complexity level! You’re building ecosystems, trying to align your terrain so that the animals will be happy and come to your planet. Some want the largest water not touching ice, some want the biggest forest touching dirt, others want the most unique deserts, etc. It’s super simple, but very puzzle-y and has a great toy factor. That 3D planet with the magnetic pieces is so satisfying!

Lanterns is one I’ve previously talked about here. You’re building out beautiful patterns onto a lake to please the emperor for the lantern festival. It’s sorta like dominos, but the cool part is you get colored cards matching the tile facing you *every* time a tile is played. When you have enough, you can turn them in for things like 3 pairs, 1 of each, or 4 of a kind to get points. When the tiles run out, that’s it! Super simple, but very chill. It’s great finding the perfect tile for that hole, where all the sides match and you get several cards. The expansion adds some fun stuff too!

Want to buy these games? Check out your friendly local game store (FLGS), Amazon [here], or get a first-order discount at Board Game bliss [here].