So I’ve been MIA the past couple days because The Kid and I took a short vacation for the President’s Day weekend. My parents retired mid-last year to the Charleston, SC area and we hadn’t seen their new house yet. Since they have been so busy retiring, planning the move, and moving everything several states, we haven’t seen either of them in a year so they’ve really been missing us.
The trip was all done on the clandestine since I decided to surprise my Mom with our visit instead of planning it with her. In my 44 years, I’ve never once surprised my mother with anything except maybe my insanity. 😉 The look on her face when we walked through the door was so worth it. She was truly surprised and had no idea that we were coming. I think we made her year with this trip.
As part of the adventure, it was interesting to try to mesh several different eating types together. It didn’t work very well. My Dad follows your typical American diet of fast food, cookies, cheesey things, and so on. My Mom is a vegetarian that barely eats. She tends to not eat meat substitutes and is probably the only person I’ve ever known that consistently doesn’t even get the minimum protein requirements. Trust me, this is a difficult task to do.
Since I knew getting enough veggies wouldn’t be difficult for The Kid and me while we were there, I focused on bringing protein with us and loaded up on protein powder, bars, and packets of tuna. I didn’t anticipate the lack of eating that we were going to face though. I joked that most people complain that their Mom feeds them too much when they visit, but clearly I had the opposite issue. They aren’t big eaters and pretty much have one meal a day.
I was dying! I’m used to eating about 1800 a day which isn’t a huge amount. I tracked my eating in My Fitness Pal while we were there just to see where we ended up. Gah, by late evening on most days I wasn’t even halfway through my normal calories and ready to eat my arm! Thankfully my Dad had higher calorie junk in the house so I had to eat things like pop tarts, cookies, and other stuff just to hit my calories.
NOT the best choices clearly and lesson learned for packing food on vacation. Next time I will make sure to bring denser calorie choices like nuts and nut butters. I had to ration out the snacks I brought lest we starve before the trip ended. Yes, hunger makes me quite the Drama Queen. 😉 The upside to all this is that it showed me how far I’ve come in my eating habits. I didn’t want to eat that junk and couldn’t wait to get back to cook in my own kitchen and eat foods I was used to.
Even The Kid whispered to me that she thought we were eating out too much since her stomach was hurting all the time. I’ll take that as a sign that I’m doing something right in my feeding her. Small victory for me. So this morning I’m puffy from salty restaurant food, bunches of junk, and lack of water. I’m looking forward to whipping up some new creations over the next few days to balance us out. Phew! But it was all worth seeing the joy on my Mom’s face. That was priceless!
Ahi Tuna Sliders with Wasabi Mayo and Cucumber Slaw 
- 1 cucumber
- 2 Tbsp low sodium soy sauce
- 2 Tbsp rice vinegar
- 1 tsp wasabi powder
- 1/4 cup low fat mayonnaise
- 16 oz ahi tuna
- 1 tsp sambal oelek
- 3 hot dog buns OR 8 slices 40 calorie wheat bread
Cut the ends off your cucumber and use a spiral slicer to make thin strands of cucumbers. Or you can thinly slice them by hand. The thinner the better. You want them thin enough to be bendy. <— This is official Quest terminology.
Toss the cucumbers with the soy sauce and vinegar in a small bowl and refrigerate while you prepare the rest. Mix the wasabi and mayo in a small bowl and set aside. Place the tuna pieces in a food processor with the chopping blade or use a blender or Magic Bullet. Add the sambal oelek to the tuna and pulse until the mixture resembles hamburger texture. Kinda like making meatloaf or burgers. Don’t puree it to death.
Line a cookie sheet with tin foil and spray lightly with non-stick spray. Preheat your oven’s broiler while you form patties with the tuna. If you are making slider sized, form 12 patties that are approximately 2 inches across. If you are making regular sized burgers, form 4 equal sized patties. Place on the cookie sheet and broil quickly on both sides.
The trick with tuna is to cook it long enough to sear it lightly on each side with pink still in the middle. Remove from the oven and let them sit just a bit while you get the buns ready.
If you are making sliders, cut each hot dog bun into three pieces. Spread each bottom piece with a little mayo. Place a patty on each bun, add a little cucumber slaw, and top with the other part of the bun. If you are making full sized burgers, toast the bread and spread with the mayo. Add the patty, top with cucumber slaw and another slice of bread.
Makes 12 sliders or 4 burgers.
If you’re looking for more uses for sambal oelek, you can try:
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