When Nothing Else Will Do

In case you haven’t noticed in the dozens of post I’ve done on the matter, I get food nostalgia. I have so many memories of specific dishes, recipes, smells, that remind me of different times in my life.

This is an odd one though.

There are few foods that I remember loving as much as I love my mom’s tuna salad. Yup, you read that right, tuna salad. I can remember being a little girl and going back to the dish of tuna in the fridge 3, 4, or even 5 times to get more, even if I was totally full. My mom would make a HUGE amount, and no matter what, I’d eat it.

I always knew when I had a tuna salad sandwich for lunch at school when I’d open my bag and see a foil-wrapped package instead of my usual plastic bag, and it would make my day!

After a long hot day at camp, the last thing I wanted to do was turn on the stove or the oven, and when I really thought about it, tuna salad was what I wanted. Adam stopped at the grocery store for ingredients while I met up with our wedding photographer to pick up our album (it’s FABULOUS!), and I came home and got to chopping.

Mom’s Tuna Salad

Ingredients

3 cans white tuna in water, drained

3 ribs celery, finely chopped

1/2 sweet onion, finely chopped

1/2 tsp. freshly ground pepper

juice of 2 limes

salt to taste

~2 Tbsp. real mayonnaise

Directions

Mix the tuna with the celery, onion, lime juice, pepper and salt. Stir in mayo until the salad holds together, it might be more or less than 2 Tbsp. depending on the moisture in the salad. Refrigerate until cool and enjoy.

I did my best to remember what to do, but I’m not positive my mom used onion like I did… but it worked! It hit the spot, and I definitely consciously had to STOP eating it so I had some left over for other meals.

Camper quote of the day, said by 8 year old girl: “Mara! Look! I have nuts! (Holds up pistachios) {pause} Why does everyone laugh when I say that?”

Have a great day!

Tagged as: camp, family recipe, salad, simple recipe, Summer, tuna