Recipe #1: Tuna Salad

Let us discuss tuna salad. (Know that I hate when I am looking up recipes && have to go through one million words just to get to the bottom, && sadly, I don’t have the “skip to recipe button”.)

My manager at work && I talk about tuna salad a lot. Not because we are obsessed with tuna salad, we just: one, like to talk about food, two, enjoy a good tuna salad. However, our ideas of tuna salad differs, a lot. For her she uses tuna, Hellman’s mayonnaise, pepper, and pickle relish. For me?

Tuna Salad Ingredients – in my humble opinion.

Tuna, Mayonnaise (usually whatever jar I have that is almost empty), mustard, purple onion, dill relish, salt (not pictured), pepper && eggs.

The way I make it usually becomes a very high talked about subject. I’m not sure if it’s the eggs, mustard, or the fact that I don’t always use name brand mayonnaise.

We also get on the subject of goulash – which she said she has never had, && most tell me “you make it differently than I do”. That’s okay.

It’s okay if we don’t cook the same. It’s what makes food interesting. Seeing how one person differs from another, even if we are making the exact same dish. Tuna salad, for example, is one. Last Tuesday we got on the subject because I had wondered over to the bakery at work && got their tuna salad, which is tuna and mayonnaise. Which is fine. It gets me protein, and I like mayonnaise and tuna.

One of the topics of discussion is the fact that I put egg in mine. Here’s the issue, I think I’ve discussed it before, but I don’t know where or why I got the idea to scramble my eggs. I will put butter in a skillet, drop the eggs in and scramble them before adding them into the tuna. The only thing that I can think of is that one day I was making myself tuna salad, too lazy to boil them, so I just scrambled them? Possibly. I do know that no one in my family has ever scrambled their eggs, they boil them – but they do say different people cook differently. Maybe this is just something I do?

Future-ex-boyfriend doesn’t complain. I just have to let it sit in the icebox for a bit because he doesn’t like hot tuna.

I did eight cans of tuna, eight eggs, 2/3 purple onion (yes, I refuse to call it red, it’s not red, it’s purple), eight tablespoons of dill relish (don’t do sweet), eight tablespoons of mayonnaise (which you can do more if you like it creamier). I normally top it off with pepper, but I made this batch for work (because they all said they’ve never eaten it like I make it, so I made it, && cooking for people makes me happy – which I need a little of lately) and one of my employees can’t eat pepper. I figure I’ll tell them to pepper it when they get some. I pulled future-ex-boyfriend some in his own bowl for tomorrow, which I peppered for him, && tasted – perfect!

Then just mix it really well.

&& for anyone curious, the bottle is Milo’s Zero Calorie Sweet Tea (yellow bottle). I approve that tea. Them && sriracha, if I ever became a popular blogger, they could sponsor me. (Please note, I’m chuckling while typing that.)

So, in conclusion, maybe I do make my tuna salad weird. But I have yet to really have a complaint. Only ones who complain are the ones who don’t like tuna, && I don’t know why they be eating it when they don’t like it. Ya’ know?

Hey! At least it doesn’t have raisins in it, right? Because that’s apparently a white person thing to do. Just add raisins to everything. && yes, I know that was a joke from Saturday Night Live that people took way too seriously.

1 Can Tuna
1 Tablespoon Mayonnaise
1 teapsoon mustard
Small Handful of diced PURPLE onion
1 Tablespoon DILL relish
1 Egg, I scramble, feel free to boil
Salt && Pepper to taste. I really LOVE pepper, so I probably use more than you will.

Mix all ingredients really well. Serve cold.

Frozen Can-Can

I haven’t always known how to cook – some might even say I still don’t know how to cook, which is fine. I like my cooking – so does Boyfriend, so that’s all that matters. I learned how to cook by watching food television shows, which also include food competitions. Normally when they cook on them, they explain what they are doing, what they are expecting, what it should look like – you end up learning a lot.

For example, I have been watching “Guys Grocery Games” on Max a lot lately. I learned that the reason mushrooms get slimy is because you don’t remove the ribs in the back of the mushroom. That has stuck with me since Guy mentioned it. I didn’t realize that – don’t get me wrong, I’ve always removed the ribs, so my mushrooms aren’t slimy, but it was something I learned on a cooking competition show.

So, basically, I have taught myself to cook. Normally people say my mother or grandmother, or aunt taught me how to cook. I didn’t get that luxury. I taught myself. Honestly, it’s fine, just means it took me a little longer to learn things, so I used cookbooks (yes, I honestly have read cookbooks), and television shows. Rachael Ray was a huge one I would use, through the years, though, it has changed. I don’t miss any show of Gordon Ramsay.

Back to Guy’s Grocery Games: for anyone who doesn’t watch it – he picks three to four people and put them in his grocery store, give them games, and they cook – the winner will win 10,000 dollars if they can get all the ingredients at the end. If you don’t watch it, but like fun and goofy game shows, you would enjoy it.

He has one game, my favorite to watch, called “Frozen Can-Can”. The rules are simple, you can only shop in the frozen section and anything in a can. && every time they end up playing this game everyone starts freaking out. I’m not talking like a little freak out then calm down, through the whole episode they do nothing but complain about not having fresh foods, how canned foods are gross, how frozen foods are nasty.

Here’s my thing.

All kinds of different people watch these shows. People who can afford to go out and buy fresh foods, people who have to use frozen foods, people who have to buy canned foods. Some people don’t have the luxury of being able to purchase fresh foods all the time. Then there are people who don’t know how to cook with fresh foods – which seems strange to anyone who knows how to cook fresh foods, but I didn’t at the beginning of my journey. I have had to google, read cookbooks, watch television programs, ask a lot of questions. I still have a few fresh items I have never cooked with && wouldn’t know where to begin.

I think what bothers me the most watching them freak out is the people that are watching the show that have no choice but to stop in canned or frozen food. Families on food stamps, for example, have to buy canned or frozen so it lasts longer. My household is just Boyfriend and me and I tend to stay away fresh (I’m not talking about meat just fruits and vegetables) because fresh food goes bad very quickly. I can buy $100 worth of cans and fresh food that last me months. Fresh vegetables would last me about three days, just long enough for them to go bad.

Basically, stop food shaming people. You’re making the people who have no choice but to purchase cans and frozen items feel bad when they shouldn’t be. Because frozen items are just as good as fresh items if prepared correctly.

Stop. Food. Shaming. People.

That includes talking about what people eat. Just because you don’t like canned tuna, doesn’t mean the woman next to you needs to hear about your hatred. && I’ll never understand people who don’t like vegetables.

WHY A TATO?

It’s not a secret that I want a food truck. I’m actually very vocal about it. Have been for years. But I have some thoughts.

Tonight I took my brother, his girlfriend && their two year old to dinner – including boyfriend. So it was four adults, one two year old child. Children, usually under a certain age, is free. They don’t eat much. We got the bill, I looked at it – $72.00. I sit for a moment thinking why is this so high? This is with the understanding that we went to a buffet. (I’m possibly still living with the mindset of someone in the late 90’s to early 00’s where one person was $7.50 at a buffet.)

Let’s get out of that mindset.

I understand food prices have gone up. I would never try to deny that. So I understand the price per adult is going to be higher than $7.50 now. What I wasn’t understanding – four adult drinks & a child drink – $15.00. First – if a child eats free, their drink should be free. Am I wrong for thinking like that? Especially if they order a tea. Tea is CHEAP. All tea is cheap. But let’s say that a child drink is half the price of an adult drink – four adult drinks && one kid drink – $15.

On the way home I was talking to Boyfriend about the prices. He told me it’s because most people don’t look at the price of drinks so it’s an easy up sale (y’all should pay more attention to how much your drink is). More profit. I understand the concept of profit. People need a profit or their business doesn’t work. I get that. I understand that. But at the same time – 3$ for a drink. I even will take in consideration it’s a buffet so people sit there for a while drinking. But even tonight, I ordered a Diet Pepsi, I drank half the glass, the waitress refilled it – then I drank that whole glass. $3.00

Then we started talking about selling 20 ounce bottles. I told him I don’t understand why people sell those for $3.50 – he said “up sale” again. Let’s discuss that for a moment. You can buy a 6 pack of bottles at Wal-Mart for $8.00. I sell each for $1.50. That’s a $10 profit. Why do I need a $34 profit?

Maybe with my whole mindset it’s a good thing I don’t have a business. From the sounds of it I may go bankrupt very fast. I just figured – let’s say I get the food truck && I sell bottles of soda/water. I sell them for $1.50 – shouldn’t my food make up the costs of what I may or may not lose? Especially if I just buy bottled drinks. I mean I’m not going to argue about prices of food. I understand the reason behind the hike in food prices in businesses && I also understand I would have to have a good profit off those. But at the same time, why would someone sell a baked potato for $10.00?

The place I work has restaurants inside of it. One of them I used to go to and buy a loaded baked potato. I would like to mention it wasn’t that long ago. I could get a baked potato with sour cream, green onions, butter, cheese && bacon bits for $4.50 with my work discount. ((I’ll make sure to add that I get a 20% discount eating at the restaurants are my job. Small perk, if you will.)) So with that discount – $4.50 for a loaded baked potato. Last month, a co-worker went to that place && got a loaded baked potato. The potato was smaller than it used to be with the same toppings – $10.00 with our 20% discount.

Potatoes are cheap. It’s probably one of the cheapest vegetables you can buy. You can get a 10 pound bag of potatoes right now, for $5.00 at Wal-Mart. Logically, I know that the company doesn’t shop at Wal-Mart. So I understand that the company they purchase through is going to go up a little on the price. So let’s say 10 pounds for $10.00. There is usually about 25 potatoes in the bag. Let’s do math. You spent $10.00 on a bag of potatoes that have 25 potatoes in the bag – you sell the potatoes for $4.50 (&& that’s included with the toppings I mentioned). That is approximately a $113.00 profit with just potatoes. Let’s take in the sour cream, green onions, cheese… what else did I say? Sour cream… oh! Butter.

Humor me. Let’s do some math. Now, keep in mind, I’m using Wal-Mart prices because it’s where I shop.
Potatoes – $10.00 a bag – approximately 25 potatoes – which means each tato is $0.40.
Sour cream – $1.88 – it’s 16 ounces/so we’d do half an ounce per tato – gives 32 servings for $0.06 each.
Shredded Cheese – $7.48 for 32 ounces/so we’d do half a ounce – gives 46 servings for $0.16 each.
Butter (I buy imperial sticks) – 4 sticks per box/each box is 32 ounces so you’d have 36 servings for $0.04 each.
Green Onions – they come in bunches usually of about 5 onions, half an onion each, 10 servings for $0.09 each

$0.40+$0.06+$0.16+$0.04+$0.09=$1.56 – price per tato with toppings.
25 tatos x 1.56= $39.00 for the whole bag of tatos with toppings.
Let’s say we sell them for $4.50. 25 x $4.50= $112.50 for 25 servings of tatos.
$112.50-$39.00= $73.50 profit

I’m not business major (although I was in college for business && did really well in accounting) so I could be totally wrong on how the profit works. I also realize, there’s more to it. I know there are other bills and other factors, but I’m just looking at the tato. I’m just saying I don’t understand why a company would sell a baked tato for $10. Yes, I know people want the bigger profit. I understand that. I just don’t understand…

Let’s say I make the best baked tato ever! Word gets out about how good that baked tato is. It’s fantastic. Brings me in more people – so I sell more tatos… my profit is higher. Or am I dense for thinking like that?

I don’t know, maybe I just shouldn’t look into having my own business? It’s not like I’m going to try to sell a cheese burger, fries & a drink for $1.50 – I understand how prices are. I understand that it would need to be at least $10 for that. BUT WHY A TATO?

Bacon.

I googled today “blog topics”.

I really wanted to write a something but I didn’t have anything in mind to write about. So I pulled up the internet and googled it. Some of them were interesting but I came across one that made me laugh. Out of everything that you could possibly write about, the website said:

“Bacon. Who doesn’t love bacon?”

I laughed. I thought who would actually take the time to write a full blog about bacon? I understand that people do enjoy a good piece of bacon – alone, with something, in something, wrapped around something. But would someone actually read a full blog that was based on the popular breakfast food?

But the question more is – what could I say about bacon, that others haven’t already? Bacon. Pork Bacon.

I actually didn’t used to eat a lot of bacon as it upset my stomach, sometimes it still does. Then for awhile it gave me kidney stones because of the salt – although I found the underlying cause of that, so it wasn’t bacon. Recently, after the diabetes and such, I began cooking with bacon a little more. Not a lot of bacon, just enough to give a taste and probably a crunch since I overcook it (I tend to zone out).

I do enjoy the bacon jokes when people say they will take their bacon with a side of bacon, covered in bacon, and bacon on the side to dip their bacon in. When I still worked overnights && my job still has an employee dining room – I’d go get bacon, crumple it && put it in white gravy. Then I’d eat it with a spoon. Told that to the boyfriend && he said it sounded gross. Maybe not gross, but it could explain why I’m 9,000,000 pounds. (That might be a slight exaggeration.)

Bacon isn’t what will kill me. Butter is.

The websites also said to share a recipe with your readers. &&& since I chose bacon – I’ll share a bacon recipe with you. I call it warm corn and cabbage salad.

I first take a head of cabbage and chop it up.
Chop up an onion. I use white, but I’m sure it would be good with whatever kind you want to use.
Fresh corn on the cob – I cut the corn off.
Chop bacon into small pieces.

I first cook the bacon. I toss in the onions, and cabbage. Mmm-mm. After they cook a bit I add in the cabbage – season with your favorites (I tend to use pepper, onion powder, & garlic powder). Cook it a bit until you get the texture of the cabbage you want. Serve.

Well, I guess it is possible to write a blog about bacon.