Tuna Pasta Salad

One night last week, we were at a loss.  No really money to go out, no desire to cook...  Neither of us could decide what we wanted to eat so we sat there, fridge & cupboard open, rattling off everything we saw...

At some point, i turned to the meat eater and said 'tuna pasta salad?' and he was all like, 'ok, whats in it?' and when i mentioned mayo, his response was, 'um, EW?'

and then i realized that tuna pasta salad - one of my favorite things - must be another one of those single behaviours that i didnt even know was strange...

to me, its perfectly logical...  tuna salad = good.  pasta salad = good.  tuna pasta salad = good!

he couldnt think of anything better, so tuna pasta salad it was.  ha!  forget food pictures, i should have taken a video of his expressions as i was putting it all together...  'wait, you're putting MUSTARD in it?'  'um, what else do we have in the house if this is gross?'  'maybe i should just order something now?'

That first night (oh, because, spoiler alert:  we made it twice last week) i made it two ways... His with tomatos and parmesan and mine with celery and feta.  I tried both and realized that the feta - not so much...  it was fine, but not particularly interesting...  kinda just tuna salad with feta and pasta - not so much anything that made it seem cohesive at all...

but the tomatoes & parmesan - now we were talking....

I'll have you all know, the reason we had it twice?  oh, cause the skeptical meat-eater? he requested it the second time...

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Tuna Pasta Salad
courtesy of me
Click here to import recipe directly into Pepperplate

5 oz pasta of your choice (we made campanelle once and orecchiette the second time.  Shells work too.)

2 5oz cans solid white albacore tuna in water, drained
1/4 c light mayo
1 - 2 tsp spicy brown mustard
salt
pepper
garlic powder
onion powder

1 14.5 oz can zesty diced tomatoes, drained

1/4 c grated parmesan

***

Prepare pasta according to directions on pacakge.  cool under cold water to stop cooking & cool pasta down.  Set aside

Prepare tuna salad - combine tuna, light mayo and spicy brown mustard first.  then add salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder to taste.  (I like a decent amount of each - a few shakes -  but i always start slow and build up because nothing ruins this faster than too much garlic or onion powder...)

Once tuna salad is to your liking (it will most likely be a bit dryer than you usually would eat it), add in the tomatoes & parmesan.

Once all is combined, check the taste again and adjust accordingly.  You may find that you still want a bit more mayo or maybe a bit more spice.  I generally add a bit more onion and pepper at this point but it all depends on how heavy handed i was to begin with...

Tuna Salad Lettuce Wraps

my poor grandma J... she HATED to cook.

If she's reading this, she's rolling her eyes at me and wondering why in the world i would post any of her recipes...

but thats the funny thing about Grandma J - she hated to cook but she always did a pretty good job of it... which was a good thing, because she had this theory - if she bothered to cook it, you better bother to eat it.

Also as a result of her hatred of all things cooking, she was a devout recipe-follower... she didnt want to think, didnt want to experiment - just wanted to spend as little time and thought as possible on getting food that people would eat onto the table.

I was never reminded of this so much as i was when we would spend a week at the beach with her... we'd get these little bungalows and spend our days on the beach & evenings in the arcade. Nowadays, vacations (for me) include eating as a big part of them. But back then, eating was an afterthough... but it apparently made an impression none-the-less...

You see, a few weeks ago, the meat eater and i had good fortune combine and there was an available weekend coupled with an available beachfront condo... the only thing we didnt have was an actual fortune, so we accepted the condo and figured we'd cook all weekend...

i immediately wanted tuna with celery & lettuce on toasted wheat bread for lunch.

because thats what we always ate for lunch at the beach.

My typical tuna needs are much easier - no celery chopping, no lettuce garnish - hell, half of the time there isnt even bread... but the beach calls for something much more specific.

Since we've returned from the beach, i've held onto my need to have celery in my tuna salad (something which makes the meat eater gag - good thing he wasnt around grandma - she would have made him eat it!!!) and last week, combined my version of the beach tuna salad with lettuce leaves as wraps. because good god have we gotten a lot of lettuce from the CSA and really, there are only SO MANY dinner salads a girl can have...

see what i did there?
More CSA usage, FTW!

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Tuna Salad in Lettuce Wraps
Inspired by Grandma J

1 can albacore tuna in water, drained
2 tbsp light mayo
1 tsp spicy brown mustard
1 celery rib, diced
salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder (to taste)

6 large leaves red or green romaine lettuce

***

Combine first 4 ingredients
Taste and then season with more mayo, more mustard, salt, pepper, garlic and/or onion poweder, to taste (i generally do a shake of each one)

divide tuna between lettuce leaves and roll up

Pat yourself on the back for using CSA ingredients in non-obvious way.