Grandmother's Tuna Salad Recipe and Update

My paternal grandmother made the best tuna salad and she always served it in a hobnail moonstone bowl.  Reminder to self....search the Internet for 'The Bowl'.  For years we have been trying to crack the recipe and I think I have finally done it.  

My daughter in law came very close in the winter of 2018.  But I think that it was just one ingredient off and that one ingredient was Miracle Whip instead of mayo.  I always felt like the tuna salads we were making looked too yellow.

  My grandmother's philosophy was that there was nothing that couldn't taste better with a little sour cream added.  AND if it was something sweet she was of the mind that peanut butter could make it better.  Her peanut butter Rice Krispies  treats were very tasty.

But back to sour cream, Miracle Whip, and tuna salad.  We are a Hellman's household and there isn't a jar of Miracle Whip in the house but one day it dawned on me that Miracle Whip was the cat's meow in the 50-60's. AND Miracle Whip is WHITER than mayo.  So last week I tried the recipe again with Miracle Whip and it looks and taste like my grandmother's.

Grandma Brunette's Tuna Salad Recipe

2 cans of chunk tuna in oil NOT water. Must be chunk and in oil, drained (do not rinse). 

shell pasta approximately 1 1/2 cups uncooked (the photo shows shell and elbow because I ran out of shell) 

celery 2 or 3 stalks sliced lengthwise and then diced into 1/2 inch pieces.  Any bigger and you start getting those celery strings caught in your teeth.  

1/4 to 1/2 white sweet onion diced into 1/2 inch pieces, must be sweet onion or the onion taste will over power the other ingredients

frozen peas 1/2 to 3/4 cup

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt, we always salt lightly

Miracle Whip

sour cream

OPTIONAL dill weed just a dash or two

Garnish with paprika.  She ALWAYS garnished everything with paprika.

Cook the pasta until al dente.   Drain and rinse with cold water.  If you do not rinse the shells they will stack inside each other (been there, done that). Drain and place in a large covered bowl,  and put in fridge to get cold.

While cooking the pasta you can dice your celery, onion, and thaw out your peas.  

Don't mix together any of the ingredients until everything is cold.  Add the drained tuna to the pasta and break apart the chucks into flakes and mix into the pasta.  Now add the rest of the ingredients and look for any shells that might be sticking together and separate them.

In a small bowl mix 1/4 cup Miracle Whip, 1/4 cup sour cream, and salt.  If you are adding dill weed this is the time to add it to the dressing mix. 

Add half the dressing and mix lightly so that the tuna doesn't fall apart.  If salad is too dry then add more dressing.  The photo above is how I like my tuna salad.  If you want more dressing then add more.  Just don't add it all in the beginning.  It is much easier to get to the correct amount of dressing by slowly adding.  Once you have made the salad a couple of times you will know the correct amount to add right from the beginning.

Garnish with a couple of light shakes of the paprika jar.  This is just for looks and was always how my grandmother presented her tuna salad at the table.

Now comes the most important part.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 12 hrs.  I have found that if you don't wait, the tuna flavor will be too strong.  I don't know why, but it is.  

Oh and while I am talking about tuna, do not buy tuna in water or tuna pieces.  It is tasteless and the pieces are so small that it is more like tuna slime and not tuna flakes. 

ENJOY

Update....we haven't embarked on any interesting projects of late.  But we have a long list to start on when the weather breaks.

  We did a massive tree trimming and shrub removal at the Torrey Road house in preparation for when we put it on the market.  

We installed a 3rd gen Nest thermostat in the Torrey Road house and I will do a tutorial in the coming weeks.

I also made a great potato soup recipe the other day and I will do a post about that recipe along with my sister's crock pot potato soup recipe which is to die for.  

I am also planning on writing a blog post about how we sold 2 properties (FSBO) without an agent.  One property sold for 10K under asking but 40K more than properties adjacent to it.  The other sold for asking on the second day even after the first buyer's agent told me to lower the price.  The property sold for 35K over identical other properties and it is still the highest selling condo in the area.

I am thinking about writing a post on my fave YouTube channels.  I watch some unusual ones that if someone told me I would watch these in 2020, I would have to say 'No way'. Hint there are kitties involved and maybe a dog or two.  

If any of these future posts sound like something you are interested in, just subscribe to my Instagram account where I will post whenever there is a new post on the blog.  

 https://www.instagram.com/gear_acres/

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