1. First Attempt at Tuna Salad: Bolstered by everyone’s suggestions Monday, I bought some solid white tuna and made tuna salad. I used the America’s Test Kitchen recipe as a jumping off point, and then added red bell pepper. I also substituted pickle juice for pickles (I don’t like pickles in my tuna salad, although I do like celery and red onion), ignored the request that I add fresh parsley (parsley can die in a fire), and squeezed on some lemon juice. I also add capers to my sandwich before eating, although I don’t like mixing capers into the tuna salad itself for reasons I haven’t fully excavated from my soul. I sort of squinted so that the tuna in the can was blurry, and then added it to a mixing bowl and immediately put the other ingredients on top of it and stirred everything together so I didn’t have to think about the color of the tuna. It turned out okay. I think the tuna salad I love has more mayonnaise than I am willing to add to my own tuna salad, because I ostensibly don’t like mayonnaise.
Next time, I will use more mayonnaise and less mustard; I can put mustard on the bread. I also want to make this mini focaccia because I like tuna salad on focaccia.
2. Finger Food: In addition to tuna salad, I have been thinking about food a lot this week because we are having guests for the Super Bowl. There is almost nothing I like better than an excuse to make a bunch of fun and tasty appetizers that can be eaten in front of the TV.
We are having two guests, which brings the total of people who will presumably be eating food to five, although counting Carla is probably dumb because she will only eat chips and guacamole, nothing else. (She asked me to buy TWO bags of Lays and TWO bags of Tostitos because she is anticipating a LOT of chip eating.) Keep that in mind as I lay out all the many, many things I am slavering over. We will probably do one of the below things, plus some veggies. Our guests are bringing meatballs. And my husband is making seven layer dip (with taco meat and without olives) because that is the food that is calling to his heart.
- Air Fryer Bang Bang Salmon Bites: At various points my Instagram feed seems FULL of people making delicious looking salmon bites in the air fryer. I would love to try these and they seem perfect for a party.
- Bunless Cheeseburger Bites: These are adorable and they have the added benefits of being carb-free AND something that Carla would potentially eat. I am not crazy about making burgers in a frying pan though… if only I had additional air fryers to call into service.
Air Fryer Buffalo Cauliflower: I am not much for buffalo wings, but I do love spicy cauliflower.
- Mini Crabcakes: I really, really want to eat some crabcakes on Sunday and found a package of mini ones in my grocery store’s freezer section. But the price is deterring me. I could make them on my own. But… after the cost of crab claw meat and then making them myself, I wonder if it might not come out to more hassle than it’s worth?
- Air Fryer Artichoke Hearts: Why does this sound so delicious??? I think only I and one of our guests will eat these, so probably they won’t make the final cut. But I am eyeing them!
- Endive with Goat Cheese and Candied Nuts: I had this appetizer at a party a million years ago and it was so fresh and delicious and it is VERY EASY to make. You dollop some goat cheese on an endive leaf, add a few candied nuts, and then drizzle with balsamic reduction. This recipe that includes blood oranges sounds appealing, too.
- Spinach Artichoke Zucchini Bites: YUM. If I can find some pre-made spinach and artichoke dip at the grocery store, I might do these in addition to whatever else I choose.
Are you planning to watch the Super Bowl? If so, what kind of snacks do you hope to eat? If not, what’s your favorite party appetizer to make or eat?
3. Valentine’s Sweets: The Super Bowl will be followed closely by Valentine’s Day. Carla is SO INTO Valentine’s Day this year, and I love it. She and I scrolled through a billion options online for her to buy for her classmates and then she also made everyone a friendship bracelet. She filled all of them out the day they arrived in the mail. She also wanted a special Valentine’s Day outfit, and, while we were unable to track down the ideal dress she had in her mind (which I think was a floor length gown of tulle and sequins, which I expressly said she could not wear to school), we did find some adorable pink clothing at Target that she has already set aside for The Day.
This is all to say that I am very into making Valentine’s cookies this year. I really want to make two kinds of cookies. Well, in reality, I want to make three or more kinds of cookies and then make up Valentine’s Day cookie plates for all our neighbors but that seems a little extra even for me. So I have reined it in to two varieties. I am pretty sure I want to make these stripey heart cookies because they are darling. However, I have made them in the past and if memory and my blog serve me, they were somewhat prettier than they were delicious.
I definitely want to make something chocolate. Carla’s old standby is the chocolate snickerdoodle, which I think is delicious and also fun because it is unusual. But my husband isn’t a huge fan of them. Perhaps these brownie crinkle cookies would be good instead? The idea of a brownie in cookie form is delightful. These cinnamon cookies with Red Hots are very appealing to me as well, not in small part because they have cream cheese frosting and I adore a frosted cookie. But I’m not sure where I would find Red Hots? They aren’t something I’ve seen in awhile. I have been tossing around the idea of making raspberry macarons. I haven’t made macarons in a long while and they are delicious and festive. (But also kind of fussy.)
I could always go the cupcake route instead of cookies. Carla has been talking about Nutella quite a bit lately, and these strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate cupcakes are filled with Nutella. I would vastly prefer to make vanilla cupcakes with raspberry filling and raspberry buttercream – but maybe if I make the Nutella ones I won’t eat them all.
If you make sweets especially for Valentine’s Day, what is your favorite?
4. Grocery Store Swap: Since I have successfully reintroduced yogurt into my diet (hooray!!!!) I have been testing out different yogurt varietals. My current favorite is the Fage 0% blended cherry yogurt. (I cannot stand fruit on the bottom yogurt.) But I can only find it at one specific grocery store, so I have completed rejiggered my shopping schedule to make that store my preferred store. Fortunately, it is near my friend’s house, and we usually go to her house once a week for a writing session, so it’s not wildly out of the way. But I feel slightly neurotic for rearranging my grocery shopping life around yogurt. It’s better than going to multiple stores, right?
5. Feedly: Okay, so this isn’t TECHNICALLY food-related. But I have been noticing that Feedly is increasingly unreliable. I completely missed a post by Nicole yesterday because it didn’t show up in my feed. Sometimes people’s posts show up late or three times in a row. Sometimes I will see a week’s worth of posts all in a row, as though someone posted them all in one day. A few commenters have noted that some of my posts don’t show up until a day or two later. (Edited to add: I follow my own blog on Feedly and as of 6:00 pm on Friday, my post still has not shown up in my feed. SIGH.)
This all sounds like a really good argument to finally add an old-school style blog roll to my blog, so I don’t miss anyone’s posts. I have been thinking about doing it for a long time, more than a YEAR… but haven’t, mainly because I’m afraid of missing someone and hurting feelings. But that’s silly, right? If I miss your blog, you will know it’s purely a brain failure and not that I don’t adore you and your blog? And you will alert me immediately? My current “systems” – the unreliable Feedly or having everyone’s blogs bookmarked in a browser – are not working. And I don’t want to miss your posts!
How are you keeping up with the blogs you follow?
That’s all I’ve got for this Friday, Internet. Hope you have a delicious weekend.
Arrghhhhh the feedly thing. I use The Old Reader which is fairly reliable although occasionally I’ll get a post late. I always think better late than never but still, very frustrating.
I am making a heart-shaped cake this weekend, and we will be watching the Super Bowl, although R is doing his colonoscopy prep starting at 4, so that will, um, throw things a little for a loop. Ah well, what can we do. I think I’ll make guacamole just because, I bought a huge bag at Costco, thinking like normal that they would take forever to ripen. GUESS WHAT THEY ARE ALMOST RIPENED.
I think I will make heart cookies, although I was going to not do it this year, landslide, etc. But I’m having a Galentines party next Saturday (want to come?) and maybe I should have some crowd-pleasing cookies.
YES I WANT TO COME. I am realllllllly hoping the avocados will be ripe when I buy them today, otherwise… well, I suppose I can always buy pre-made guac.
I’ll be right over!!! I’ll bring the buffalo cauliflower and you make the air fryer artichoke hearts- those sound SO GOOD. And, you actually made those striped cookies? I’m impressed, they look kind of complicated. Bummer that they didn’t taste great. My daughter wants to make the strawberry and cream cookies from Sally’s Baking Addiction. They look good and not too complicated (I just have to find freeze dried strawberries.) I can’t wait to see what you make this year.
The best thing about the cookies is that they are MUCH easier than they seem! Oooooh I am very intrigued by the strawberries and cream cookies! Looking them up now. (If you have a Trader Joe’s nearby, they often have freeze dried fruit.)
Jenny – normally TJ’s has freeze dried strawberries! Also sometimes Target has them in their name brand (in the nut aisle.) Good luck!
Our grocery store keeps the red hots (ahem…”cinnamon candies”) in the baking aisle with the sprinkles, maybe yours does to?
Such a good idea!!! I bet you’re right!
Most of the blogs I follow are posted on Facebook, so I see new posts there, but I also have a set list of blogs in my mind I check every morning.
North has promised to bake something for Valentine’s Day, but they haven’t decided what yet.
I am very excited to learn what North will bake! I am sure it will be fabulous.
I do not ever want to “yuck anyone’s yum,” but I read your tuna salad recipe with a kind of fascinated horror. If I were to list, in order, the foods I hate most, it would be canned tuna, celery, red onion (that one is an allergy that causes severe….stomach problems), pickles and capers. (I also strongly dislike spicy things and definitely have the cilantro soap problem.) I was picturing coming to your house for lunch and you setting that in front of me. What does one even DO in that case?!?
Isn’t so funny how everyone has such different likes and dislikes?
Your appetizers sound amazing. I cant wait to hear what you make.
We are ordering wings, making sausage-rotel dip, a veggie tray, a fruit platter, cream cheese/red pepper jelly, cracker appetizer, and carrot cake (belatedly for husband’s birthday). My brother is bringing guac and chips.
HA! Omg, Melissa — I can imagine my own horror sandwich (egg salad on rye with tomato and Miracle Whip, maybe?) and I think we would just have to say, with deep regret, “I am so sorry but I cannot eat X – it makes me ill!” And that would be TRUE. Your spread sounds wonderful!
I would love your tuna salad! Capers would add that extra bit of saltiness. The appetizers sound delicious, especially the Buffalo cauliflower. However, I must admit that I’m much more like Carla. 🙂 I intend to “watch” the game although I’m not very interested so if it’s not exciting, I’ll probably read or go for a walk instead. Feedly seems to re-post the post if the blogger has made any changes to it. (which requires re-publishing) Now you’ve made me wonder what I’m missing out on. Are the missing posts generally WP, Blogger or something else? I know that typepad lost its feed a long time ago and got it back for Feedly and other big readers but they’ve never fixed the issue with the blog crawlers used by WP and Blogger.
We are going to a neighbor’s house for the Super Bowl (go Chiefs!), and we are having a ton of food. My contribution is pastry wrapped sausage bites with everything but the bagel seasoning (also found on Instagram) and brownies. My favorite super easy app is Boursin cheese with honey, served with crackers. It’s so easy (my friend group always races to claim that app) and very delicious.
I’m sure the Super Bowl will be on in this house but I won’t watch. The Husband is sure to put out a bunch of yummy goodies that neither one of us need but will both eat way too much of.
If you can’t find Red Hots in the baking or the candy aisle at the grocery store, I can almost guarantee that you can find them in the candy aisle at CVS or Walgreens.
One of my children requested Red Hots for their Christmas stocking, and I went through a similar thought process: Wait, when did I last see Red Hots? and WHERE? Do you have a grocery store near you that seems to cater more to, er, OLD PEOPLE? That is, we have one near us that is where we would go if we needed LAUNDRY BLUEING or BORAX for a science project, and they also sell…now I am have trouble thinking of any good examples. But OLD-FASHIONED things. If I think, “I wonder if they still sell the particular weird sponge my grandmother used to use?,” I check THIS grocery store. And they sell clothespins, and clothesline. Oh, I thought of another example: at Christmas they have canisters of those…how to describe them…very old-fashioned candies that are like little disks? with pictures in the middle? that people like to put on gingerbread-house roofs? Anyway, that same store also had Red Hots at Christmas, in little spice-container-sized containers and also in bag-of-candy-sized bags. I don’t know if they have them for Valentine’s Day, but that is where I would start my search: the old-people grocery store.
Lol, I’m with Melissa, that is a Horror Sandwich for me (although I like celery). Go Crazy With the Mayonnaise! I used to hate mayonnaise, and now, when it would be way better for my ass size if I still hated it, I do not.
Goddamn, I AM going to have to break down and get an air fryer, aren’t I?
We have no Super Bowl plans because my husband just got home after three weeks away and I did not know it was going to be the Superbowl. My favourite thing to bring to superbowl parties is a buffalo-chicken-cream-cheese dip thing wrapped in little balls of pizza dough and brushed with a combo of buffalo sauce and butter.
I will bake heart cookies slightly after Valentine’s Day for when Eve comes home for February break (duets on Landslide with Nicole). Are Red Hots cinnamon hearts?
Your tuna sandwich sounds good to me, although Iately onions have not been my friend (especially raw ones!), so I would prefer to leave that out. However, if you want to add more mayo, I am totally game. All of your Super Bowl snacks look great to me. I can come over and eat whatever everyone else does not like!
You do know you can make tuna cakes, wherein you’d be able to groove on your tuna [first topic] turning it into finger food [second topic]. Just saying!
I have an old-fashioned blogroll that I crowdsourced. It’s more popular than you might think, but it also requires upkeep. I use Feedly to keep track of all the blogs I actively follow. It can be free and is more reliable than Reader.
Your quest for the perfect tuna salad is well underway! IMO parsley is overrated. I only use it in the summer when I have it in the garden. I don’t know if your mayo aversion is because you think mayo is gross or if it’s a calorie thing, but Hellman’s vegan mayo is inherently less gross/lower calorie/tastes as good or better than regular mayo.
My vote is that if you would LOOOOOVE the artichoke hearts and you know that one of your other guests would like/love them, then they should be on the menu.
Feedly needs to get over itself!
Feedly didn’t show me this post! What the heck, Feedly?!?! Love your cookie options– I am thinking of making some ludicrous Oreo cookie dough cheesecake bars for the Super Bowl so I might not bake for vday– gasp! We are doing nachos and ribs and veggies, plus chips and guacamole– I am indifferent to football but love eating junk on the couch.
I’m late to the Tuna Salad Recipe Party, but here’s mine:
Solid White Albacore Tuna
Hellman’s Mayo (also called Best Foods regionally)
Lemon Juice and Lemon Zest
Old Bay Seasoning
Fresh or Dried Dill (weed, not seed)
Fresh Ground Black Pepper
That’s it. If using dried dill, it takes time for the flavour to develop. Additionally, this is wonderful if you increase the amount and make it into Tuna Pasta with Peas. Simply add cold cooked pasta shape of your choice and a bag of frozen peas, thawed under running water. Best summertime dinner ever with a bottle of sauvignon blanc.
Because we are anti-NFL, it slipped my mind that it was Superbowl weekend until we were invited to a party yesterday. Hm. Honestly, I always used the Superbowl as an excuse to buy chips and dip, which I very rarely do and that would seem like Quite A Treat.
Feedly has been so weird for me, too. Nicole’s post just appeared last night at about the same time this post did. Maybe we should all go back to blogrolls. When technology fails, go back to 2007.
Oh man, more Feedly issues.. I was so happy that I was able to resolve my Feedly issue in the fall (which I found out had to do with my hosting server and a third-party security app they were using), but that cannot be the case if you have problems with different blogs not showing up on time…. that is so annoying. I’ve been testing the RSS Feed Reader extension for Chrome (which seems to be working pretty well) and also the Old Reader and InoReader, although I prefer the Feedly layout. Why is Feely making things so hard??
Re: Super Bowl, we’re not really watching (although we’re probably going to turn on the TV) and I have not planned any fingerfood/snacks *gasp*… but I do love me a nice hot salsa-cheese dip with tortilla chips for game day!
We recently got an air fryer for the first time, so I was debating making up some things in the air fryer for the game, too. BUT, I’m a little confused how I would keep things warm. For example, I figure there’s a way to make nice chicken wings in the air fryer. I also thought of making air fryer potato wedges. But by the time the potatoes were done, then the wings would be cold? No? Our air fryer isn’t ginormous, either. So, not sure about that. I think we are actually going to go with sloppy joes on slider buns, some pigs in a blanket things the boys like, chips + pico de gallo and probably some cheese/crackers/ leftover summer sausage from the holidays that hasn’t been opened yet. Nothing too glamorous but I just wanted EASY. Will just be us + my parents so really no need to do anything complicated or fancy. Haha.
The thought of 7 layer dip made me smile. In my office, we have frequent potluck lunches. Someone usually signs up to bring 7-layer dip or 8-layer dip. There is one male lawyer who always one-ups the person by subsequently signing up to bring a dip with one more layer than the first person signed up for.
Feedly is super unreliable. I have noticed the posts of a lot of a WordPress blogs are delayed but I don’t have a solution to his so I am just very delayed in commenting since I rely on feedly! Why does this have to be so hard!!
We are not doing anything for the Super Bowl. It is so late and I am such a wimp when it comes to staying up late (or late ish). I don’t care about either team so I am mostly watching for Usher and clever commercials! I am making chili but will be the only one eating it as Phil is taking Taco to his mom’s after nap. But if I don’t cook tonight, we won’t have leftovers to live off for the next couple of days.
My boys are excited for Valentine’s Day, too but I fear they will be disapppointed… neither can bring treats to school. I will probably pick something up for them and I am sure they will still have fun days at school. It’s just a bit different from my sugar-fueled celebrations of my childhood!
Feedly has been all over the place. I’ve had an issue with mine lately, Nicole’s and yours. And San had a long-term issue.
Like Nicole, I also have Old Reader and find it far more reliable (but I prefer the aesthetic and layout of Feedly).
I LOVE tuna salad. Like love, love, love tuna. I love adding it plain on top of a salad; if it has mayo and fixings my fav way to eat it is topping my favourite beet crackers with a spoonful of tuna filling. Yum.
Those heart striped cookies are GORGEOUS.
When the kids were little, I would sometimes make sugar cookies with them and then we would decorate them – like make from scratch sugar cookies and frosting. It was a lot of work, but oh my gosh- they loved it. We don’t do a lot of Valentine Day prep. I love that Carla is getting into the day. Sequin and tulle dress? Love the idea of it.
I use an old fashioned blog roll gadget thing on my blog. I do love it. I don’t do Feedly. I have discovered so many new to me blogs and I do need to update my blog roll. I vote you do a blog roll. I like opening my blog and being able to see who has a new post. Um, since I haven’t updated my blog roll, I honestly use a piece of paper with a list of blogs to remind me to check for new posts.
My blog is hard to follow right now, because I have it on private temporarily. I’m hoping to get it back up and running by mid to end March. :0
I’m so happy you made it through the tuna making process without losing a digit.
I hope your Super Bowl party was good. I love artichoke hearts and the one you shared looks great.
I use Feedly, and I’ve not noticed anything off lately. Or maybe, I’m just off?
I was having the same Feedly issues! It was really frustrating – I even reached out to my hosting company TWICE because I thought maybe it had something to do with them. But they couldn’t find anything, so I finally emailed Feedly support and they said there was a Google issue that was causing the lag for some websites, but it should be fixed now. Here’s hoping!
I am having a little Galentine’s celebration tomorrow with a friend, and I was looking at Publix for a treat for us and everything was so expensive! I should have just picked up some take-and-bake cookies but alas.
Those cookies look amazing. Did you end up making them? And that tuna sandwich would be a welcomed. It sounds like one of my migraine go to meals.
Feedly seems to have lots of hick-ups lately. Maybe I am just missing posts because I use that. I need to have a closer eye on it. Maybe the old blogroll is a trend thing we could start. It’s been a while I ha that on my blog. But I also feel I its mean to keep someone of the list. Sigh.