The other day I realized that I hadn’t fixed tuna salad in quite a while. The first thought on this was that I would need to buy some sweet bell pepper (any color, red, orange, yellow). For many years when I fixed a salad, I added some sweet bell pepper to it. And until not too many years ago, the only bell pepper that I used was a green one. That was probably because I don’t recall any but green bell peppers being sold in the grocery stores that I frequented. *Someone, probably Mary Ann, mentioned that the colored bell peppers were sweeter and more tender. I don’t think I had noticed this on my own, but after it was brought to my attention, I rarely bought a green bell pepper.
**Also, the various colors of bell peppers go well in my Salsa Ranchera dishes (usually chicken or pork) which include onion and tomatoes. They go well when I fix spaghetti sauce, although the big change in my spaghetti sauce is using Rao’s Marinara “starter” sauce. But, I’ve also stopped adding mushroom bits & pieces to this sauce. So, between spaghetti sauce, the Mexican chicken dish or salads, I almost always had one or two colored bell peppers on hand. But now, I mainly fix a Greek Salad, in which I don’t use sweet bell pepper. And, I rarely fix spaghetti sauce, because of the high starch content in the spaghetti noodles, and I rarely fix the Mexican chicken dish.
So, I stopped by the nearest Food Lion in which the Green Grocer (vegetable) section has recently been remodeled, and bought a red (seemingly smaller than usual) bell pepper. I used about a quarter of this red bell pepper in my tuna salad.
Tuna Salad Ingredients:
| Canned Tuna Sweet Onion Sweet Bell Pepper Campari Tomato Romaine Lettuce | Dukes Mayo Capers Celery Mt. Olive Pickle Relish Sun Dried Tomato | Lime Juice Splenda Sweetener S&P Cayenne Celery Seeds Dulse |
I think the only thing that I didn’t add to the tuna salad today was the sun dried tomatoes. And, I don’t actually recall whether I chopped up the Romaine Lettuce for this either. My first thought was to slather some of the tuna salad on a Romaine leaf, and some more on a slice of wheat bread.
For a long time, and especially since my last visit to Dr. Norem, I haven’t been eating any sandwiches or even a hamburger with two slices of bread. Only one slice, the hamburger patty, a couple of slices of sweet onion, a small tomato, relish, catchup and some yellow mustard on the plate. And yes, I do like a dill pickle spear with that.
Speaking of dill pickle spears, or slices. Walmart, until about three years ago, offered a Spicy Dill Pickle in addition to their regular dill pickles. I think I still have one unopened jar of the spicy dills from Walmart. I think the last jar that I opened, the pickles had begun to go a little mushy. But, I had learned that I could pour out the pickle juice from the regular dills or dill spears and pour in the spicy dill juice, and very shortly, the plain dills took on the extra spicy flavor.
Just a few days ago, and I wasn’t looking for this in particular, I came across a recipe for Ranch Dill Pickles. The first thing that caught my attention was that this recipe only had two ingredients: a 1 oz. package of Ranch Dressing, and a jar of dill pickles. Now, I know there are more ingredients in the package of Ranch Dressing, but I tried this, because I had an unopened jar of regular dill slices, and a package of off-brand Ranch Dressing mix. I used the whole package of dressing mix, pouring it into the dill pickle juice, which made the juice a milky color with flecks of herbs (from the dressing) floating in it.
I’m not sure that I can say that the Ranch Dill Pickles are exceptionally different, but there is nothing negative about the flavor, and I do plan to pour this modified pickle juice into another regular jar of dills after I’ve finished eating this first batch. Now, I have planned to eat one slice of the Ranch Dill Pickles three times today. One for lunch, one for dinner and one with my Bucheron cheese & Sesame Crackers snack for later tonight.
I really have fallen for the Sesmark Savory Rice Thins crackers. I eat them when I have a salad, and sometimes with soup or chowder. There are two different versions of these thin rice crackers from Sesmark. One comes in a package that has twice as many crackers for about the same price.
These crackers go well with Nueske’s Smoked Liver Pate, but they also go well with the Bucheron or Capricho de Cabra goat cheeses. The Capricho de Cabra cheese is extremely tart and combining it with a thick raspberry jam and a cracker works! *But, until I get my A1C under control, I don’t think I will buy any raspberry jam, or orange marmalade or blackberry jam.
Now, I might add the above cracker choices with my homemade hummus choices for variety. I like having smoked oysters with my hummus, but also Vidalia onion, Campari tomatoes, assorted olives (Castelvetrano, Kalamata, Green), assorted colors of sweet bell peppers and maybe celery stalks or carrot spears. *I haven’t had them lately, but I seem to recall that I don’t actually like the celery stalks with hummus, and I’m not sure why.
The following I have used as a condiment with certain deli sandwiches: Inglehoffers Creamy Horseradish, Frenches Yellow Mustard & Equal Sweetener (and/or Agave Nectar). But, I haven’t been eating any homemade deli sandwiches lately because of the fatty/salty meat and the starchy bread. If I had a craving for the horseradish-mustard mix, I might buy a small package of sliced deli Turkey or Ham and eat the two together without any bread.
I haven’t been eating much cheese lately either. I like cheese, many different types, and I especially like fresh goat cheeses. There is also a blue cheese, “1924 Bleu,” that has exceptional flavor.
Thinking about toasting bread for cheese, reminds me that I also like to slather a slice of wheat bread with margarine and then sift a generous portion of garlic powder (not salt) on the whole slice. This toasts up nicely in the oven.
Growing up there were only two main cheeses that we ate. Cracker Barrel Sharp or Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese was the old standard for toasting on white bread. I don’t know when the first time was that I had wheat bread, but I might have been in college. The other cheese was Kraft American Cheese, which went on a sliced ham sandwich, which might be slathered with Dukes Mayo. The American Cheese slices might be individually wrapped, or not. As a much older adult, I have enjoyed a sharp white Cheddar cheese from Cabot’s.
I’ve written about this elsewhere, but I think it was about 2017 when I was on one of my three day vacations and I had come across a restaurant chain online. The chain was called Macados and the locations are mostly in Virginia. I was looking to visit the location in Lexington, VA because Washington & Lee University is located there (VMI also there), and I had planned to stop by the university to meet with a staff person that had developed a “free” application for the Blackboard LMS that FSU was using. But, after driving through the Washington & Lee campus, I decided to not try and visit this person. And, that made the morning only about a little after 10 am, which was too early for lunch. I got online and saw that there was another Macado’s location in Roanoke, VA and decided that I would drive down there and have lunch. Only after I neared and drove into Roanoke, at 12 noon, did I realize that I didn’t want to fight the crowds for parking and eating at a restaurant during “rush hour.” I did drive in downtown Roanoke and past where their Macado’s was located. But then I got online and found that there was another location, a short distance away in Salem, VA. Now Salem and Roanoke are jammed up right next to one another, but Salem is much, much smaller. Ironically, Roanoke College is located next to downtown Salem, not in Roanoke.
So I made it to Salem, VA and managed to find the Macado’s parking lot behind the restaurant. The front of Macado’s faces East Main Street, but there is little or no parking there.
[NOTE]: Before making it to Lexington, VA, I had stayed the night before in Lynchburg at the Quality Inn. Just before leaving the motel for breakfast, I went up front to where they were offering a continental breakfast. I was planning to have breakfast at Famous Anthony’s (Google Street View), but I saw a selection of Bigelow teas on the counter and I chose the Raspberry Royale. Not sure why I did, but it became an excellent choice. I made a small cup of the tea in my room and took it with me. I hadn’t finished my tea before pulling up to the restaurant, but decided to keep it. After breakfast I went back to my car. The tea was now cold, but it had good flavor and I decided to keep it for something to drink as I drove that morning. It was good cold also. *After returning home, I ordered some Raspberry Royale tea and still enjoy it to this day. **I see from the Google Street View that Famous Anthony’s in Lynchburg is permanently closed. [end NOTE]
Macado’s is a college crowd restaurant, with stuff on the walls and ceilings. I looked at their menu and found that they offered a Pastrami on Rye sandwich, with rough cut fries. I hadn’t had a Pastrami sandwich in several years so I jumped at the chance, and boy it was worth it. The sandwich was flavorful, had lots of meat, was toasted with Swiss cheese and the fries & ketchup were all delicious. The ice cold Pepsi was a welcome addition. *Reading in an earlier post, I may have had iced tea instead of Pepsi. I do seem to recall that my waitress didn’t come back very often, but I did manage to get a refill of Pepsi and more ketchup to finish off my fries. The food was GREAT, and set the tone for the rest of my lunches on this vacation. I ate Pastrami sandwiches in Asheville, NC and in Florence, SC before returning home to Fayetteville.
I think it may have been a couple of weeks before I got all the fixin’s to make a Pastrami Reuben (Rachel) at home. My first attempt wasn’t a complete failure, but I tried to toast the bread & cheese on the stove-top. What a mess, the bread ending up greasy and burnt. But since that first time I have honed my Pastrami Rachel skills to a fine art. I can make the sandwich quickly, and with little mess in my oven. I put margarine on one side of each slice of bread and toast that first. I then flip these toasted slices and add Swiss cheese to toast on both insides of the sandwich. I toast the cheese for the inside to help prevent any sogginess due to the Sauerkraut. And, I have learned to love Sauerkraut, and even add extra as a side, and on the sandwich. The Sauerkraut goes on one side and the Thousand Island Dressing on both sides and then the Pastrami slices in the middle. This makes a consistently good flavored sandwich. I don’t make french fries at home, or not in a long while. I do have a potato cutter for making french fries, but I’m a little wary of all the hot oil in the pot on the stove-top.
Oh, I do make my Thousand Island Dressing at home. I think there are only about 5 or 6 ingredients that go into this dressing: Dukes Mayo, ketchup, diced sweet onion, Mt. Olive relish, Texas Pete hot sauce and S&P. This makes a pinkish dressing with little bits of onion & pickle floating in it (thus the thousand islands).
I have made a delicious Catalina Dressing at home. The finished product had a ruby red color and had a good sweet flavor. Recently I made a Cilantro-Lime Dressing to use on a baked Salmon steak. The flavor was different but I think it was high in calories, which is something I don’t need. I do like Ranch Dressing, but I buy this at the store.
Great Value Classic Ranch Salad Dressing & Recipe Mix, 1 oz 54 cents per packet [06/28/24]. I think I bought a generic packet of this dressing at Food Lion for 50 cents. I removed some of the dill pickle juice and emptied the packet of dressing in the jar. Added back some of the juice and closed and shook up the jar, dispersing the salad dressing mix in the liquid.
Bill Gibson, II 