Foodies Beware!

It's no secret that I may not be the best or brightest of cooks.  I often find it difficult to think of recipes and even more difficult to find food in our supply that fits into any of those recipes.  I tend to be a leap-before-you-look type of chef.  If I feel motivated enough to try to prepare a meal for my hungry family before I go to work, I often feel discouraged when I open the cabinet to find only cans of tuna and boxes of stale cornbread.  So, instead of fighting and failing, I give up and tell Mark to make eggs again for dinner while I'm gone.  (I do realize that there will never be any food unless I buy it from the grocery store, but I can never think when I'm there).

Today, fueled by a sudden surge of compassion for my family mixed with a waved of domestication, I decided to make dinner while the kids were napping.  Of course, by the time they were both sleeping simultaneously, it was only 40 minutes before I needed to leave for work.  And just like always, I stood in front of the food cabinet, waiting for inspiration.  I had already thawed some chicken, but I couldn't find any type of sauce for it, so I put it in the fridge for tomorrow's food adventure (which will likely be a story about chicken as dry as wood).  Then my eyes landed on the can of tuna.  Yes, of course!  I would create a Tunarrific tuna salad and pair it with au gratin potatoes from a box (a fantastic pairing!).  With skills like these, maybe I should write a cookbook and open a restaurant.

Unfortunately, not long after boiling the noodles and opening the can of tuna, I realized that I had no peas or really anything else that would logically go into a tuna salad.  So, using my skills of improvisation, I located a carrot and chopped it up and threw it in the bowl.  What else?  Some mayo.  Then there were some onions that seemed like a good idea but of course they were all rotten and had to be thrown away.  So there it was, tuna salad made of oddly shaped noodles (I don't know why I would have bought them), canned tuna, and chopped carrots mixed with generic mayonnaise.  When it looked very pathetic, even to me, I decided to add a few shakes of salt, pepper, and onion powder (next best thing to the fresh, right?)  and Ta-Da!  dinner was prepared.

When I came home from work, I found the bowl just about as full as when I left it.  Eli had eaten his portion, though he refused to eat the box au gratin potatoes and it seems as if Mark has vetoed the entire meal.  Hmmm, maybe it will be better on day two...

For more of my recipes, check your local bookstore for my best-selling cookbook, "Gut Busting and Butt Bursting Discomfort Foods".  This recipe will be on the cover.  Although at a glance, it may be confused for a modern art book...