Making the Perfect Tuna Fish Sandwich

Sandwiches are the perfect bachelor food: They are simple to make, have few ingredients, and are generally healthy. The tuna fish sandwich is a little healthier than most, and only takes a few minutes to make. Better yet, with a few modifications, it’s great addition to a soup dinner.

1 Bowl

1 Fork

1 Large Spoon

1 Medium dill pickle

1 small can of tuna

2 tablespoons of mayonnaise

1 quick squirt of mustard

4 slices of bread

Slice of Lettuce nd/or tomato

Start by chopping a dill pickle into smaller parts. You can also slice into quarters and then slice them into quarter-inch sections. Take a can of tuna and open the top completely but don’t remove it. Take it to the silk, press the top down, and drain the water into the sink. Take a fork and throw the pickle and tuna nto a bowl. Two tablespoons of mayonnaise and a squirt of mustard will usually be enough to spread between two sandwiches. Thrown the slice of tomato or lettuce, and you have a perfectly healthy lunch.

The egg salad sandwich is another version; just take out the pickle and the tuna, and replace with two mashed or very-well sliced up hard-boiled eggs, toast the bread, and you should be fine.

The obvious variant is the tuna melt. Take out the mustard and pickle, and halve the mayonnaise. Add a slice of cheese to both sandwiches. Warm a frying pan to medium heat while spreading margarine on top of both sandwiches. Throw a sandwich in the pan (both if it is big enough) margarine side down. Spread margarine on top of the sandwiches. Wait about a two minutes, the flip over. You want the bread to browner than it was, but not black. It may take a little practice to do this, but it’s worth it. Serve with tomato soup, and you have the perfect meal for a cold day.

Enjoy your lunch!

The Use and Abuse of Condiment Packets

All right, I know it’s trivial but someone is going to ask about these eventually, so let’s get it out of the way now. One of the problems with being a bachelor is that you start picking up all of these various packets of seasoning, condiments, and other ways to flavor your food. It honestly hits the point where you think that they are breeding when you aren’t looking. Nonetheless, they can be handy to have at hand.

Let’s first get serious. I’m not going to be suggesting them for home use. It’s actually cheaper to buy a small bottle of soy sauce than to grab a handful every time you hit the Chinese restaurant; you would have to grab a ridiculous amount to make it worth it. The effort of tearing each packet open compared to just pouring out the needed amount from a bottle really isn’t worth it. So this is not going to a recommendation for frugal shopping.

However. They do make your life easier everywhere else. I am suggesting you keep grabbing them and asking for them whenever you can, extra even. Then, when you take them home put them somewhere where you can grab them easily. In general, you know when you will be eating somewhere besides the house, and that’s when you grab whatever packets you feel you may need. They may be low-quality, but they do add flavor in some areas, and that’s something worth considering.

The salads created for corporate lunches are usually boring. Even when they do non-standard salads, such as a Caesar’s salad, it can still use a little something extra; pepper and parmesan cheese packets rock for that needed flavor. Red pepper and soy sauce packets can add a little something to soups when they come up. If you have some creamer packets, you’re not as dependent on the creamer, so it can run out without you caring. Mashed potatoes a little dry? Bring out the soy sauce and butter packets; yeah, soy sauce in mashed potatoes. Try it before you make that face. In short, if you know you’re going to be eating somewhere else, grab some packets of flavor to make the food more palatable.

Also, odds are good that you or a roommate don’t use those packets that come with ramen or those other nuke ‘em lunches, such as that packet of dried vegetables. The flavor packets can be used like you would soy sauce packets, just keep in mind that they may be thicker and so allow for it. The vegetable packets can be used as long as you can get them into hot water; not only do they add some flavor, but they also add some added nutrition to anything.

So, if you have a messenger bag or briefcase  that is always with you, you can use that space to make sure that you have some added flavor to your food, and it’s conveniently packaged for single use. Just a small tip that may make those boring lunches a little less boring…

Cutting A Potato

It may sound trivial, but the ability to cube a potato is something that can really influence what recipes you can do. Large cubes are great for potato salads and mashed potatoes, while small cubes are great for hashes. Medium-sized cubes are great for frying for breakfast and dinner. As there are a number of other slices that have other uses, it helps to know your way around a knife and a potato.

When you cube a potato, you are approaching it from a number of different angles. You need to quickly determine the longest direction and the second longest. Your first series of slices will be along the longest length to the second longest; this should give you the largest planes to work with. You want to divide the potato into half and flip one side over so you are looking at nothing but skin; the center of the potato will be on the cutting board. This is for maximum safety; the potato will not rock and is easier to cut into. Also, by cutting the potato in half it becomes a lot easier to handle.

The next series of slices should be from the longest section to shortest; if you were just after fries, this gives you the longest fries. The last series of cuts should be perpendicular to those cuts, and you should be through. In general, the cuts should be about the width of your finger if you are just boiling them for mashing potatoes, about half that if you are frying them, and as small as you can go for hashes. If you are going for shoestring fries, make them as thick as you want, but I would suggest about a quarter-inch or so.

The cubing will give you most of the cuts you need. There are three other options: grating, sections, and slicing. For hash browns, just peel it, run it through a grater, and fry or bake. You can also slice; cut perpendicular to the longest dimension all the way through the potato. Make the slices as thin as you feel comfortable with and you can fry or bake for chips. Sectioning is all sorts of fun, but useful for making steak fries. Cut the potato in half along the longest section. Cut each half in half along the longest dimension. Continue until you have sections that are about ½” thick at their thickest part. Simple, right?

Bonus: “Frying” in this case means that you have enough oil to just cover the bottom of the pan, usually to a depth of 1/8”. For fries and chips, you want just enough to cover the potatoes. “Baking” is a light cover of oil over the potatoes in an oven at 425 degrees for about 45 minutes, flipping about halfway through.

Hope this helps…

Potatoes Can Be Fun

Potatoes are another really fun staple food to play with.  The part of the potato we usually use is the tuber of the plant, where all of the stored energy is kept. The better the growing season the bigger the potatoes become. The potato itself has come a long way; when originally planted for food they barely the size of thumbs, but now they can get to the size of a fist, and there are a number of different varieties. We are also past the stage where a potato famine will cause widespread grief.

With that in mind, potatoes are a staple of most diets. They provide a simple starch that provides the calories needed to get through the die, as well providing a number of great-tasting foods with minimum preparation. A running debate will be rather or not to include the skins; they can be coarse, but at the same time most of the non-caloric nutrition is in the skins. Keep in mind that potatoes need to be cleaned in order to get any remaining dirt off of them before you cook them, and some uses will require peeling them.

For breakfast, potatoes can be grated and fried or baked for hash browns. They can also be mashed and served with breakfast gravy, or cubed and over-peppered. If you can cut them rather small, you can fry with meat, such as roast beef, for a decent hash. For a simple version, just boil and serve. There a number of variations on the above, such as adding caramelized onions to the mix, so it’s just a matter of experimenting.

Lunch consists of pretty much the same options, but fries and chips get added to the list. For home-style, you will either be deep-fat frying the sliced potatoes or covering them in a spiced oil and baking. A simple version involves ¼ cup of oil per potato, with a lot of spices thrown in, and then baking it at 450 degrees for about 45 minutes; flipping half-way through. You can also slice the potato as thin as you wish, and fry in a cup of oil for chips. If you want to do a baked potato, you can always cook one at 350 degrees for over an hour or pound one on the counter and microwave it for about ten minutes.

Snacks consist of pretty much any of those options. You can also cube and boil the potatoes, add in a half-cup of mayonnaise, a little mustard, some cumin, pepper and salt, possibly some sliced hard-boiled eggs, and you have a decent potato salad.

For dinner, you can make mashed potatoes and do just about anything with them, such as serving with spices and plain, under gravy, or even fry them off. You can also cube them up and cook them with whatever meat you have going. They can also be cooked with vegetables. There are a number of different options, and potatoes tend to be very adaptable, and you can do a lot with them. The key is to experiment, and have fun with them.

How To Do a Proper Stir Fry

A “stir fry” should be considered the same as a “stew” or a good “ghoulash”; you simply throw a lot into the pot and see what happens. All you need is a source of protein, the rice, some liquid, and some vegetables. A wok is great, but any frying pan is good. So, let’s get a good stir fry going.

First, start boiling the water for the rice. You may want to stir the water a little; this makes the rice a little sticky. You will then want to either prep the meat or start cooking it. This is one of those times tofu is appreciated; “quarter inch” is the keyword here as you want to slice the tofu either into strips or wafers. The same applies to any other meat you want to slice, be it steak or pork. Chicken is a special case; you can either cut it into strips or mash it down. Fish should not be used; it tends to flake and that may make frying it difficult, but if it can be kept in big chunks use it. However, any other seafood will work magnificently. Whatever protein you end up using, cook it at a low to medium heat so as to get the most juice for your stir fry.

Once you have the meat frying, start prepping your vegetables. Don’t slice too fast, but try to time for when the meat is ready. Any vegetables work here, so either go with your favorites, whatever needs to be used, or just pulling out random vegetables; it’s all good. Cut them up into bite-size pieces, and put them aside. When you start putting them into the pan, try to work from the hardest to cook to the easiest; this means carrots and other roots first, then celery and other stalk vegetables (such as green onions), followed by onions. After that, it will be your squashes and eggplants, and then any soft vegetables (including tomatoes). This should allow everything to cook at the same speed.

Whatever liquid you are going to add should be added at this point, as well as any spices. You can add them at the beginning, but you want to be able to drain the oil from the meat without wasting any of the liquids. I know I’m being vague here, but anything works here as well; teriyaki sauce, soy sauce, even ketchup. If you want to try something different, combine some hoisin sauce with peanut butter for a great little sauce. Red chili pepper is a great addition, along with black pepper; you want some heat if possible, but ignore the rest of the spices as they may be drowned out by the liquid part.

You can then either add the rice or put everything over it; either way it works. I prefer to put the stir fry over the rice, but that’s because the rice can soak up the liquid. Serve with chopsticks or a fork, and it’s ready to go. Enjoy!