Tuna Waldorf Salad

Thank you for your wonderful birthday wishes, I am so blessed to belong to such a giving community. XOXO to you all!

The same weekend of my birthday, we were invited to another benchmark birthday party at one of our wonderful neighbours; it was a special “Studio 54” theme! What fun is that? And everyone came dressed like the 70’s — it was glam and it was fun. Thank you Iona (and Tom), and I hope you had an amazing birthday.

JT looking cool and hip; his pants usually don’t match my dress, though

Those are curtain grommets decorating my dress!

Can you believe July is almost over? What ever happened to the summer? We’re still in high humidity and high temperatures so our meals tend to reflect lighter fare and foods that don’t need to be cooked or baked to limit the additional heat. This tuna Waldorf is a lovely adaption of the original Waldorf Salad made by Oscar Tschirky, the maître d’hôtel of the Astoria (the predecessor of the Waldorf Astoria) in New York City sometime between 1893 and 1896*. The original recipe is basically apples, walnuts and celery dressed in mayonnaise, but you know me, I try to healthy up the dish so I’ve made some alterations. I also like to serve it on a bed of greens but you can serve it on toasts or a wrap. We enjoyed this fast and easy dish at the cottage during our renos in early July.

Serves 2 as a main coarse or 4 as an appetizer

Ingredients:

• 1 tin albacore chunk tuna in water or stock (to make this vegetarian, you can omit this or used firm cubed tofu in its place)
• 1 cup diced celery (dice all items similar size)
• 1 green onion finely chopped
• 1/2 cup walnuts (you could give them a toast, if you’d like)
• 1 diced apple
• squirt of lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp chopped lemon thyme
• 1/4 cup Greek yogurt (I used fat free)
• 1 tbsp mayo (I used full strength)
• 1 tbsp lemon juice (I added more lemon juice to imitate the tart flavour of the mayo, so I didn’t need to add more mayo)

Directions:

1. Drain the tuna and set aside.
2. Add the apple to a small bowl and squirt a bit of lemon juice on it to prevent it from oxidizing.
3. Add the celery, green onion, walnuts and apple to a bowl and combine well.
4. Combine the Greek yogurt, mayo and 1 tbsp lemon juice and stir well. Add it to the vegetable fruit mix and coat evenly.
5. Add the chunk tuna and stir until equally distributed.
6. Serve on a bed of greens or toast.

I have no idea why I shot the celery and nothing else, but since I had it, here it is!

It was nice enough to sit outside even though it was a very overcast weekend.

I know many of the lovely readers of this blog have cottages or summer homes, so I thought I would pass along a little something I invented to help keep the mice off the cutlery in the drawers. Even though the mice don’t tend to enter the cottage during the warmer months, I cannot be 100% sure they are not having a hay-day dancing or whatever all over my cutlery, so I tend to wash them before use (as well as after use). I created this little invention to keep the buggers away from the cutlery, and I specifically chose plexy-glass so it would infuriate them as much as they infuriate me! So there, bugger mice, dance away because you can’t get there from here!

The plexy-glass is cut to fit the parimetre and is glued with a bonding agent to the drawer without interfering with the roller mechanics. It is hinged about 1/3 the way out so that you can easily lift the other two thirds and balance it on the counter for easy access the cutlery.

*from Wikipedia

I’m taking a little time off over the next few days so if I am absent from your blog, I do apologize, but I need a bit of a break. See you soon.

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Walnut, Morel and Porcini Crusted Tilapia

I finally got around to updating my blogrolls on the right. It’s funny how I just forget how to do things just because I haven’t done them in a while.

There is a heat wave going in the Mid-west and Eastern Seaboard right now, today during the early evening, Toronto was  94°F* or 32°C with relatively high humidity. It’s actually quite unbearable, but I won’t complain because it will be winter very soon and that’s a lot worse in my books!

It’s actually too hot to eat outdoors so we use our festive chargers and lovely colourful napkins and pretended to be outside. We’re just back from our Illinois/Wisconsin trip to visit our good friends Paul and T and we need to buckle down and start eating right again so all our hard work in April doesn’t go to waste (or waist!). Tonight we’re having Tilapia and I wanted something a little different so I sat down and thought about it. Several years ago, I purchased a small bottle of porcini dust for a small fortune. The porcini dust is long gone, but the idea stuck in my head — why couldn’t I make my own porcini dust? So I did just that but I also added a couple of dried morels for good measure. An entire crust of fungi would be a bit too earthy for such a delicate fish, so I augmented it with ground walnuts, which turned out to be a perfect combo. And the walnuts helped crust it up nicely. We pan fried it on the BBQ to avoid turning on the oven. I hope you enjoy this Kitcheninspirations original.

It was so hot outside tonight that the fish almost cooked without the BBQ!

a Kitcheninspirations original recipe

Serves 4 (2 dinners and 2 lunches in our case)

Ingredients:

• 8 g dehydrated porcini mushrooms
• 4 g dehydrated morels
• 2 g granulated garlic
• 8 g dehydrated onion
• 2 g maldon sea salt
• 20 g walnuts
• 400 g tilapia (or another firm white fish)
• Greens, tomatoes and cucumbers

Directions:

1. In a dedicated savoury coffee grinder, add the fungi, garlic, onions, and sea salt. Grind until it is finely ground. Add the walnuts and grind them into the mix, a slightly coarser texture (mine was a little too fine). The walnuts are a bit oily, so you’ll need the dryer ingredients to balance off the oiliness.
2. Dry off the tilapia and spoon the mixture onto each side, pressing it into the fish.
3. Heat a cast iron pan on the BBQ until sizzling, spray with non-stick spray. Add each piece of fish (I would do the same thicknesses at one time) and cook until it is opaque. It took the thicker parts about 5 minutes each side and the thinner parts about 3 minutes each side.
4. Serve over an easy salad of greens, tomatoes and cucumbers.
5. Dress with a warm white balsamic mushroom dressing (posted here).
6. Enjoy.

The walnut complimented the earthiness of the fungi very well.

*For my faux pas, having Metric before Imperial measures on Independence Day. Am I forgiven? 😉

And I’ll leave you with this single thought.

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