A Can of Tuna and a Bunch of Leftover Bits, and I Have Supper on the Table in Minutes

As I mentioned yesterday, I shopped for our Mother's Day brunch while doing the rest of the grocery shopping for the week. What I didn't say was I was using a portion of our week's grocery budget to cover the celebratory brunch. We really enjoyed our meal and don't regret splurging a bit. But it does leave the rest of the week a little more lean than would be normal. No worries. I've got canned tuna in the pantry.

Did you know that the canned tuna industry has only been around since the early 1900s? Prior to this time, the sardines were the canned fish people knew. In 1903, the sardine catch off the coast of California was particularly poor. One forward thinking canner thought to fill his tins with albacore tuna as replacement for the sardines. Canned tuna caught on and folks have been making tuna sandwiches, tuna salads, tuna patties, tuna casseroles, and tuna on toast ever since.

My family loves a handful of ways that I prepare canned tuna. One of our favorites is tuna salad. Tuna salad provides necessary protein as well as some vegetables, at 80 cents per can (WinCo, Chicken of the Sea chunk light tuna), tuna salad is budget-friendly, it's quick and easy to make, convenient (as I almost always have a can or two in the pantry), and it's another one of those great leftover absorbers.

In our family, we like to add a variety of extenders and flavor enhancers to canned tuna. 

For extra protein I like to add chopped boiled eggs or rehydrated TVP (textured vegetable protein). For a similar texture to extend a can to feed a couple of people, I also sometimes add cooked brown rice to tuna salad. To add some crunch and good flavor, we like diced bell pepper (red pepper is especially good, but green works too), sweet pickle relish, diced celery, green onions, mayo, and a little bacon or ham if we have it. The bell pepper adds a lot of zip. My daughter came across a hot tuna sandwich from the late 1950s that used diced green bell pepper in the tuna salad. We enjoyed those sandwiches so much that we began adding bell pepper to tuna salad whenever we had some on hand. 

Tonight, as I reached for a can of tuna, I also assessed what leftovers I had in the fridge to use up. I had 2 thin slices of ham (from Sunday brunch), some red and green bell pepper (leftover from Sunday's egg casserole), the end of a jar of sweet and spicy watermelon pickles and its liquid (to substitute for sweet pickle relish), the end of a bundle of celery with lots of leaves, and a ripe avocado. 

I combined diced celery and leaves, diced red bell pepper, diced watermelon pickles, and diced ham with 1 can of tuna, some pickle juice for flavor, and mayo to feed 3 adults. We had our sandwiches open-faced, with a large scoop of tuna salad on homemade whole wheat bread, then topped with diced avocado. On the side I served cubed watermelon and cups of rhubarb jello for dessert.

Our tuna sandwich dinner was perfect for a leaner grocery week. It also was just what I had time to prepare after a busy gardening day.

Key frugal takeaways for tuna salad:

• chunk light tuna is not only the least expensive version of canned tuna, but it's smaller size pieces and flakes work well in tuna salad.
• shop your fridge for crunchy add-ins. Tuna salad is a great medium for wilting celery, or those tops of celery no one wants to snack on fresh, or the last of a bell pepper or cucumber.
• get a big boost of flavor with a small addition of pickle juice (sweet or sour), some bacon bits or ham dices, green onions
• boost protein with chopped boiled eggs, gently mashed garbanzo beans, or TVP
• stretch a single can to feed a few people with the additions of cooked brown rice. Very little flavor and the texture blends well with that of the tuna.

What is your favorite secret ingredient(s) to add to tuna salad or tuna sandwiches? Do you prefer tuna sandwiches hot or cold?

A Lazy Sunday Afternoon on the Deck: A Low-Stress, Minimal Cooking Mother's Day Brunch at Home

Happy day after Mother's Day for all of the mothers out there or those who have or know a mother in their life!

We had a simple and frugal Mother's Day at home. I grocery shopped for it at WinCo (known as a low-cost grocery store) on Saturday. My daughters and husband cooked, prepared, and served everything. And my son and daughter-in-law came over, bringing a pastry, some blueberry juice, and some sparkling mineral water. 

As we were enjoying our meal, we had a friend join us. Can you guess who or what that friend might be? Up the steps of the deck came a young female duck that has befriended us this spring. I think she heard us talking and came for a hand-out. Oh, she was quite funny, begging and poking her bill wherever she thought there might be food. At one point she found my daughter's jar of water and dipped her bill in for a drink. She looked around in my flats of garden vegetable seedlings, and basically entertained us all. When we thought she ought to go back to the pond, we walked her back there. And she followed us every step.

Fun afternoon. We enjoyed ourselves on the deck until it grew too chilly outdoors.

So what did we actually eat? We had an egg, bell pepper, and cheese casserole, ham roll-ups, fresh strawberries, fresh watermelon, sautéed mushrooms with thyme, grape tomatoes (less expensive than cherry tomatoes this week), hash brown potatoes, butter croissants, fruit-filled mini pastries, an apricot poundcake, juice, coffee, tea, mineral water. The menu was comprised of simple foods which didn't require a lot of cooking time or make a big of a mess. 

I spent $38.87 on special foods for the brunch. We had leftovers to send home with my son and daughter-in-law and leftovers enough to make a complete dinner the day after, with some remaining foods to last for several days. 

I combined my Mother's Day shopping with my regular bi-weekly WinCo stock-up shopping. I had hoped to get to WinCo on Friday, but wasn't feeling well, so I waited a day. I wish I could have gone any day other than the day before Mother's Day. The store was a zoo on Saturday. Crowds in the aisles and long, long check-out lines. But I got it done and could work in the garden in the afternoon to destress.

Our brunch was lovely, and having it a home -- I wouldn't do it any other way. You know I like to analyze the whys of making the choices that I do. So I thought through why having a Mother's Day home-brunch is my preferred way to do Mother's Day. Here are my top reasons to choose celebrating at home.

• I don't have to deal with crowds or harried servers in a restaurant. Mother's Day is one of the busiest days of the year for restaurants. Reservations are difficult to get last minute. Even if you do snag a ressie, there are no guarantees that your table will be ready for you when you arrive. And there's no pressure to vacate your table for the next party when you dine at home. Dining at home is peaceful, and we can carry on conversations without needing to raise our voices to be heard over a crowd.
• I can "order up" exactly what I like and how I prefer foods be prepared, including using my "safe" substitutes so I don't feel ill later. I get to add in some of my favorite foods, such as sautéed mushrooms, fresh tomatoes, and butter croissants.
• Celebrating at home is easy-going. There's no need to rush to make a reservation, and I don't have to dress in any particular way to meet dining out expectations.
• And of course, it's cost-effective. Even with spending about $39 on the foods, that figure covers the meal for 6 adults. Aside from eating fast food, I don't think we could find a restaurant where $39 would completely cover the meal for 6. And because I knew the final cost would be relatively low, I could throw in the fresh brown mushrooms, a bottle of sparkling mineral water, a pound of fresh strawberries, a whole watermelon, uncured Black Forest ham (uncured ham is about double the cost of cured ham), and a large box of all-butter croissants. Yes, we could have done brunch for a lot less, but having the foods special to me, and in the premium category for our low grocery budget, made the me feel like a splurge. 
• I still had a crew to do the cooking, serving, and cleaning up afterward. So I did get a day off.

For me, celebrating Mother's Day (or many of the other holidays) isn't so much about a perfect meal or being pampered (although I enjoy that, too). But for me, it's about having time with all of my family, making new memories and revisiting old ones, and the love and laughter shared amongst our family. We do that best in the quiet atmosphere of our own home.