Well it’s not exactly meal planning, and it may not be original, but it certainly was yummy! Cheesy Tuna Mashed Potatoes is something I came up with from the Kitchen of Dad.
My dad is about as far Off the Plan as you can get in my opinion, and that doesn’t stop at the kitchen. He cooks one way – big. Making enough food for a week is his modus operandi. At one point when I was growing up, he lived in a different town for an entire summer doing an internship in his schooling to become an ordained minister. He cooked once a week, and he ate the same thing for lunch and dinner for that entire week. The next week, he made something different.
On top of that, Dad is what I think of as a Winger. He “wings” it when it comes to recipes, following the instructions maybe once before he starts adding in his own ingredients and coming up with his own concoctions. I know a lot of people do this, but not a lot of people I know, so this makes my dad special.
And that’s mostly where I learned to cook.
I love mashed potatoes. Not homemade, the instant kind from Sam’s Club (not BJ’s – those are completely different and not at all tasty IMHO). And I love cheese. Shredded, string, squeaky, sharp, crumbly, I love it all. I don’t like swiss, but that’s an anomaly. Plus, I like tuna. When I started high school, a friend (while I lived at seminary, coincidentally enough) introduced me to the wonders of tuna in water straight out of a can.
So when I was making myself supper late one night after my kids and DH went to bed, I decided I wanted mashed potatoes. But I needed protein – why not mix in a can of tuna? And then some shredded cheddar, and put it all in a bowl, with only a tiny amount of Blue Bonnet margarine (you don’t need as much when you add tuna to the potatoes, apparently), and more shredded cheese on top.
OMG it’s wonderful. Now my mom, DH, my kids, and pretty much everyone I know are completely disgusted with my cheesy tuna potatoes. And I’m fairly sure that instant mashed potatoes in the quantity that I usually consume aren’t really good for you (serves four? I don’t think so!).
But they’re yummy.
It’s a little thing, but it’s part of what puts me Off the Plan, and I like it. I like having things that in my little corner of the world set me apart.
Have you ever thought about how everyone wants to be different, and that’s what makes us all the same?
In Nicki World, there isn’t a lot of cooking going on that doesn’t start from a box. Hamburger Helper is frequently about as far as we extend ourselves. Frozen dinners in bags are my friend.