Sunday Tuna Salad (for Camila)

Tuna salad is a great way to get protein, veggies, and fruit all at once. My kids love it and it's easy to make.   Pop open a can of pineapple chunks to go with it. Or build "units" by placing a dollop of tuna salad on a ritz cracker with a slice of cheddar cheese.

Ingredients

• 2 hardboiled eggs (get that going first)
• 1 apple (any kind) chopped
• sweet pickles chopped, as many as you want
• 2 stalks chopped celery
• 1 can of well-drained albacore in water.  Don't actually use tuna.  And make sure your albacore is not packed in oil.  gross.  (My mom always put lemon juice in the tuna can after draining it because she said it got rid of the fishy taste.  Do it if you want.  I usually don't.)
• Enough mayonnaise to make it all stick together

Directions

Chop everything up while the eggs are cooking.  When the eggs are done dunk them in icewater to cool them down.  Peel and chop the eggs. Add them to the bowl. Add mayo and mix it all up.  Voila.  Lunch. or dinner.  Or snack. 

Down to Earth Granola

 4 cups oats 

1 1/2 cups sliced almonds or other nuts

1/2 cups brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinn.

1/2 cup oil

1/4 cup honey

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups dried fruit

preheat oven to 300

mix oats, almonds, sugar salt and cinn.  In saucepan warm the oil and honey. stir in vanilla. pour liquid over oats and mix.  Spread in rimmed baking sheet.  Bake for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Cool. Add dry fruit. 

grammies banana babies

 1 cup butter 

1 1/2 cups sugar

 2 eggs

1 cup mashed banana

1/2 cup sour milk

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups walnuts (optional)

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and banana.  Mix dry stuff together then add to the wet stuff.  Add nuts if desired. Bake in 4 mini loaf pans at 350 for about 10 mins. Top with cream cheese frosting. 

Yum yum Muffins

 1 cup mashed banana

1/2 cup brown sugar

6 TB apple sauce or oil

1 large egg

1 cup grated zuke

(I usually throw all of this in a blender so that the zuke is not at all detectable)

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp cinn.

1 tsp baking powder

Chocolate chips or chunks.

mix up the wet stuff. Add it to the dry stuff. Add in 1/2 to 3/4 cups chocolate chips. Mini ones work best.  Bake at 350 for about 15 mins. 

Lentil Feta Salad

 1 cup lentils

2 cloves garlic

1 bay leaf

2 chopped celery stalks

1 small red onion

1 small red pepper roasted pealed and chopped

1 cup fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped

1 TB chlopped  rosemary

1/3 cup lemon juice

1 TB EVOO

Apple Sauce Cookies

Ok, last apple recipe...for now.

When I make dehydrated apples, I use one of those hand crank thingies



And I love it! It makes my life so much easier. When my dehydrater is full of apple slices, my sink is full of peels. I boil the peels and cores down wiht about 1 cup of water and then mash them trough a old fashioned food mill that my mom picked up at an antique store eons ago. I love that thing. And it gives me about 2 cups of yummy fresh apple sauce.

So the other day I decided to use my fresh apple sauce to make some applesauce cookies.

Here's teh recipe I used with my modifications noted.

http://www.food.com/recipe/applesauce-cookies-298710

Modifications:
1 cup butter instead of 2
almost 2 cups of applesauce instead of 1
Extra 1/2 cup flour (appx)
I only added 1/2 cup chocolate chips and you definilty need 10 mins in the oven.

Apple Presents

Another great apple recipe! This one is from



1 tsp orange zest
1/3 cup fresh squeezed OJ
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 medium granny smith apples peeled, cored and sliced
1 tube of refigerated bread stick dough (I used crescent rolls and it worked well!)
1 tb. melted butter (I omitted this)

Pour the OJ in the bottom of a deep dish plate or glass bakign pan. Make the cinnamin sugar and add the orange zest to it. Then you open up one of the crescent rolls, spinkle it with cinn-zest sugar (my variation) place 2 to 3 pieces of apple near the end, and roll the apples up in the dough. PLace them seam side down in the pan. Sprinkle them with more cin-zest sugar (brush with butter first if you're using butter) and bake in a 375 oven for 25 minutes or so.

It's a lighter, tastier variation of McD's apple pie.