Manassas, Virginia

I highly recommend this recipe. I've made this twice so far and have found it to be a very good egg salad and a wonderful presentation. The first time I made it (for my family), I added 1 tsp. each garlic powder and paprika and 1/2 large Vidalia onion (finely chopped) to the posted recipe. My adult son teased me about how "fancy" my lunches were getting while his wife's 9 year old niece daintily spread hers on crackers pretending it was pate. Inspired by these reactions (and encouraged by my husband and daughter), I made it a second time (as per recipe) and contributed my mold to a bridal shower buffet. I received compliments on the salad, raves over the presentation and many requests for the recipe. The ONLY problem I had was when I attempted to unmold it. Both times I lost some off the top. For my family, I just left it alone but for the bridal shower, I sprinkled some dried parsley over the top and no one seemed to notice. If it weren't for the cholesterol, I'd make this VERY often. It's pretty, it's FUN, it's economical and it's GOOD!

These recipe sounded interesting, so I thought I would try it. Except that I knew from the ingredients list I would have to "tweak" it quite a bit if anyone in my family was even going to consider eating these (definitely not intended to disparage either the recipe or the contributor, just my own family's idiosyncratic eating preferences). So I left out the stuff that we don't like (olives, skim milk, yogurt) and substituted stuff that we do like (celery, some green and red peppers, whole milk, reduced fat sour cream) for them. I also used 2 tbls. of applesauce and 2 melted 2 tbls. butter instead of the vegetable oil for shortening and I tossed some parmesan cheese and paprika into the batter, too. The result: The muffins turned out wonderfully in that they baked up nicely, were attractive in appearance and had a nice texture. Flavor-wise? I thought they were kind of "they are what they are; good, but nothing great". My husband's initial reaction was a quizzical expression and "strange" as a comment. And then he proceeded to eat 3 more muffins. My daughter said: "Wow, these are GOOD! Are we having them for dinner tonight?" And my son actually brought a friend over and told him: "You HAVE to try these things! They're great!" (and his friend agreed) I actually wound up making 2 more batches before dinner. I served these muffins with a tomato based soup and a tossed salad, but make no mistake -- the MUFFINS ruled the meal. (I gave this recipe 5 stars. Even though I tweaked it,

I doubled the recipe and brought this to an outdoor BarBQ. It disappeared quickly and no one seemed to even notice that there was no mayonnaise. The only thing I did differently with the recipe was that I used both all purpose white potatoes along with the red ones.