Tuna Boats

This is a fun, light, crisp, easy recipe that is just perfect for summer.  The success of this depends on how fresh and nice your cucumbers are, though.  While this was good, the cucumbers I'd bought were a tad on the bitter/tart side, so I'd imagine with a sweeter one this would be ten times better.  I got the idea for this recipe off of Pinterest, but as so often happens, it didn't link back to a source.

This starts out with the tuna recipe I use faithfully - my grandmother's recipe.  I've had a lot of tuna made by a lot of different people, but nowhere else have I ever seen anyone put apples into it and that is a shame because it is just stellar.

Starting off, you'll need 3 cans of tuna in water or oil, your choice.  Drain it well and put it in a large mixing bowl or container.  I knew there'd be leftovers so I mixed it straight into a Tupperware bowl with a lid to save on dishes.

You'll also need 1/2 of an apple - red is best, but green works in a pinch - and half an onion of any color.  The cucumbers are for the little boats.  I made 4 boats and had plenty of tuna left over and could have made about 4-6 more.  My eyes were bigger than my stomach, I couldn't even finish one boat, but the Wookie came to the rescue and ate all the rest!

Other stuff you'll need includes mayonnaise (not Miracle Whip), spicy or brown mustard, salt, pepper, dill pickles or dill relish, and garlic powder, the last two of which seem to have been camera shy on this day.  -.-

Hard boil 3 eggs or one egg per can of tuna and let them cool completely.

Finely dice up the 1/2 onion and 1/2 apple and add them to the tuna along with 1tbsp of the mustard, 1 tsp garlic, salt and pepper to taste, and 2 tbsp of dill relish or finely chopped pickle.  The mayonnaise is up to you.  Some people like their tuna drier than others.  I add mayonnaise until it is to the consistency I like it at, then squeeze in a little more since I'll be adding the eggs in later.

Peel your cucumbers and remove the seeds so they are hollow.  I like to use a melon baller, it gets all the seeds out with one fell swoop.

Next, once they are completely cool, dice the eggs up and fold them into the tuna mixture.  I like to do this after everything else is all stirred up so that some of the chunks of boiled yolks stay intact.  If you mix them in as you mix everything else, they tend to break up and just sort of become one with everything.

Once your eggs are in, pop the whole thing into the fridge, covered, until it is nice and cold, then spoon the mixture into the cucumbers and sprinkle with some parsley.

That's all there is to it!

A close-up shot of the goodness.

Do you have a special tuna salad recipe that's been handed down?

<3
WW

Triple Post! Ice Cream, Shakes, and Green Tea Powder!

This is going to be a pretty huge post, but its three things that all sort of consist of one another.

This is the end result:

A home-made vanilla and strawberry ice cream green tea milkshake.  :)

We're going to start off with green tea.  I just bought some cheap green tea bags and used a mortar and pestle.  The general idea, if I understand correctly, is that consuming the entire leaf of the green tea is healthier than just drinking it as a tea.  Thus, my idea here, is to add some healthy-ness into my completely un-healthy summertime shake addiction.  :)

 

I snipped off the top of the bags using some scissors, poured the contents into a mortar and pestle, and ground it until it was as fine a powder as I could get it.

 

Not too bad.  You can stop at 2tsp of powder if you want, because that's what it took to make the two large shakes, but I kept going...

I did a whole box of them and poured them into a container so I would have a supply. >.<  Now, if you don't like the flavor of green tea, you can stop there, but I love it, so I took 2tsp of the powder and put it into 4tsp of water in a cup and put it into the fridge to sit until it was shake time!  If you aren't fond of the flavor, I'd imagine you wouldn't really taste it much, if at all, if you just add the powder flakes straight to the shake at the end.

On to the ice cream!!

 

First, slice up about a cup of strawberries.  You may chop if you prefer.  :)

 

Then, take a teaspoon of vanilla...

 

...and add it to a pitcher with 2 1/2 cups of milk...

 

...and one can of sweetened condensed milk.

 

 Pour half of that into your ice-cream maker and put the other half in the fridge to make later.  Unless, of course, your ice-cream maker is bigger than mine!

 Then, add half the strawberries and let the ice cream maker do its thing.

Here's where I got lazy on pictures, but once its done, add it to the blender with the green tea mix or 2 tsp of the powder, whichever you choose, add a little milk, blend it up, and there ya go!  This made the two big shakes you see below.  Your milkshake just got a bit healthier.  I can't wait to try this with spinach or kale powder added as well, but I need a dehydrator first!

Isn't it pretty?  Since I soaked the tea, it did have a light but distinct green tea flavor in the background.

<3
Wookie Wifey

What I Ate Wednesday

Here's a first, and I have no clue how faithful I'll be with this, but I figured I'd give it a shot this time at least.  For now, I'm just pretty proud of myself that I learned how to do the badge-thingy up there.  I hope to keep up with this at least once a month if not the once a week it should be.

I started my day off with coffee and a banana...Coffee with sugar and caramel creamer.  I'm hopelessly forever addicted to flavored liquid creamers.

And all through the day I had about a gazillion glasses of filtered water, as usual.  Yes, I drink my water out of an iced coffee cup.  I make iced coffee in them, too, just to be crazy sometimes.

I had a snack of some carrots and ranch vegetable dip...I only ate about half that dip I couldn't find my little sauce bowl.

Must. Organize. Cabinet.

Lunch was a Caesar salad in a jar (addicted to salads in jars, now SO easy), and potato and cheese perogies.  The jar salads look very pretty from the side...Unless you were lazy in your re-purposing and didn't scrape the salsa label off the jar.  Then you can't see the prettiness and have to take the picture straight down.

Dinner I forgot to take a picture of.  It was homemade chili with black beans and lots of fresh tomatoes put in.  Not so pretty, so I'm sure the pic isn't missed, but it was very tasty.