Chuck's 'Bean Of The Land' Twisted Un-Tuna Sandwich - AKA - Recipe 3, Filed Under Lunches

It's a beautiful day, and by beautiful I mean it's very autumn-like.   I'm off of work today so I had alot to do.  Aside from cleaning my basement, I made this - un-tuna salad! (yay).  Saturday I made the pretzels.. and what's weird is as I'm making them I'm forgetting exactly how to twist a pretzel.. funny, I know.   But I guess I did a good job.  I wanted em nice and fat so that they made a good 'sandwich bread' type pretzel, and I think I did ok.

what my head imagines a pretzel looks like.

So anyway I had to knead that dough good. (Kneading, it's what gives me the scary 'im'a kill you' muscles you see in my arms.) ;)    After kneading about 10 mins, the things were ready to whip into ropes and twist around.   As I said whatever my head imagined, I guess it looks good - or it works at least.  Who cares? The people eating them will still love me regardless...  OR ELSE!  :P

So after letting them rise for an hour and painting them with a lil vegan butter they went into the oven... and the out again and VOILA - big puffy, yay, breadlike pretzels!

lookie how puffy!

   So, after that was done, yours truly got to rest because I knew I had to get up at 5 am to run the Cheetah Run at the Cincinnati Zoo Sunday morning, which is a 5K.  So, I threw together (literally) without a recipe, what I consider the best vegan lasagna I've ever made (it's the only vegan lasagna I ever made, lol)  But OMG GOOD!  I had three pieces.  Lol.  It's a good thing no one lives with me.. they'd never get anything.... oh, oops that's right - I just gave away the secret that I'm not really anorexic like people want to beleive :x.   No offense to anorexics out there, I'm just not one and I don't appreciate being considered for the job by at least a fourth of the people I know.    But onto better things.

I ran the cheetah run (well at least a couple miles.) The hills up there are deadly, and maybe someday I can make them while running.   I have to beat my time in the Run Like Hell in October.. my time for the Cheetah - 41 mins.   :)  I did good considering it was my first.
Anyway, back to the food.
Windows open, it's gorgeous out - and maybe even a little depressing, which I kinda like. :) It feels very heavy, like Halloween.. I love Halloween.  But I digress.. I should be running the oven TODAY rather than Saturday when it was 99 degrees and humid outside.   But instead I was chopping and blending to my hearts content.  I made vegan mayo:

Vegan Mayo!

Then I made the mock tuna:

Mock tuna Salad!

Then I taste-tested it - and
whaddya know?  It tasted like tuna salad!  The best part, I got to use the kelp I've been saving for a rainy day!  How often does one get to use her kelp?!   I got to in this recipe!   I can't wait for my girls to try it!
My girls being Christy and her lil mini me, Elena.




So, The big day came and went - and what happened, what's the consensus -  and the big question - did Sheri dress up like a mermaid for this presentation?!
Well, this is how the un-tuna salad sandwich looked on a plate,paired with spinach, tomato and vegan cheese:

Dinner!

Ms Elena and Ms Christy and their sandwich!

Then my girls, getting ready to enjoy it.

It got rave reviews.  Elena claimed "I LOVED IT!"   And Christy Exclaimed "This is Awesome!"   So on it's debut, it made two people happy. Even I enjoyed my dinner.  I have these two now penciled in for vegan buffalo wing pizza one day in October. :)  Edited to add - Jason (Christy's husband) grabbed the other half of Christy's melt that she was saving for lunch - and LOVED it.  So we've got this one with three thumbs up!!

So, now - did I dress up like the Chicken of The Sea mermaid or what?  What did I do?  How did I make this un-tuna sing with commerciality???

I just served it.  With love. <3

And the green shirt didn't hurt... and the baubles in my hair.  Hehehe...

 

My best un-mermaid, mermaid impression

Next week, I'm doing something a lil different.  Cooking for myself.   I'm going to make vegan eggs benedict.. attempt to make english muffins and all.  Why am I not guinea pigging anyone?  Well, no one's hollered this week, and unless they do, I'm not in the mood to go hunting for pigs!  :-D  I am a vegan after all. 

Til next blog, folks. 

Music enjoyed while cooking and writing this blog:
Mono - Silicone: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in-gmNpUC0M

Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYIAfiVGluk&ob=av2n

Kate Havnevik - Kaleidoscope:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C8GobS1WE8

Frou Frou - Shh:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45sdecPv_js

Duran Duran - Save A Prayer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Uxc9eFcZyM&ob=av2e

Lion King - Circle Of Life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX07j9SDFcc

Peabo and Celine - Beauty and The Beast:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8hjGTOan7k

Bread - It Don't Matter To Me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ElQ8vXN8eI

The Carpenters - Rainy Days and Mondays:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPmbT5XC-q0

Phil Collins - Against All Odds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuvtoyVi7vY&ob=av2n

Barry Manilow - Ready To Take A Chance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0i_09SYpdo&feature=fvst

Enya - Tempus Vernum:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUb_QEoFjOE

Carpenters - Yesterday Once More:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTaWayUE5XA


The Association - Never My Love:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=munErg-ykYU

Peter, Paul and Mary - Leaving On A Jet Plane:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzVdEyHicz8

Mazzy Star - Still Cold:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UFxYYd62Aw

Lisa Gerrard - Elysium
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZvUslQLvTg

Current Motivation - The Weather

Current Craving - Chipotle

Sooner or later you're gonna be com'n a-round, and waaant my cookin' again.

Charlie....  there's a special place in heaven for you.  <3

Oh wait.. no one understands that but me, I don't think.    Good ol' Charlie Tuna.. this one is dedicated to you, my friend.   <3  (MY Charlie that I refer to, is a cat, tyvm, not that cute blue tuna to your left that looks alot like my friend Jen's soon to be husband, Shane - anyhoo).

Along those same lines, I suppose you expect to see me do my best photo impression of the 'Chicken of the Sea' mermaid, right?  I can see it in your imagination now:   I'm going to make this faux tuna salad, and I'm going to present it to you in some babuled green get-up and you're going to say  "---!!!" (I have no idea what you're going to say because there's no way you could call this chicken, and doubly no way you could call it 'of the sea' and frankly I think the whole mermaid, 'chicken of the sea' thing is really rather suggestive, don't you?)
 

Even so, we'll look at her.   Let's take a look, shall we - - - at:.......... (does she have a name??)
Here she is, naturally, with her lil fork and a tuna flying through the air in a can above her.. and, um.. tuna can't fly that I know of, and if there's a live fish coming out of a can flying through the sky... you know you've been drinking too much sea-water, right?  Not to mention, is this woman REALLY small or what?  That's a huge chunk of tuna there and last I remember of eating tuna from a can, it's about size of my hand.. (and I've got small hands).  Who's on the seawater kick now?
  
Anyway - I'm segwaying into what I call, my next veganization...   'The Tuna Salad Sandwich'.    And, Sheri's vegan version is going to be called:   Chuck's 'Bean of the land' Twisted Un-Tuna Sandwich.
(long name, isn't it?  I'm making up for that mermaid not having one!)
I'm dedicating this salad to my ever-lovin' Charlie Tuna in heaven.   :)   And before you ask - this is him:

So, let's get on with this, shall we?   From what I know of tuna salad - it's filled with fish, and mayo - eggy, nasty glopped up mayo that is full of all kinds of really horrifying stuff for your arteries. No, no no no no no no.  Need I say it again?  NO!

Not only am I going to mock up tuna, i'm going to mock up mayo, and mock up my own soft pretzel as bread while I'm at it to whomp this baby on and scarf it up.   If my girls get lucky, I'll throw a tomato and some Daiya on top, warm it up and we'll call it a 'no-tuna' melt.. but let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?

So, from what it looks like after doing research on this baby is this:

Regular Tuna Salad                             Chuck's Un-Tuna Salad
Calories -       383                                            120
Fat -              19g                                              4.5g
Cholesterol -  27g                                               0
Sodium -       844mg                                         320mg
Carbs -          19g                                              14g
Protien -         33g                                              4.5g
WW Points     10                                                  3

Regular Soft Pretzel                             Chuck's Twisted Pretzel
Calories -      483                                           460
Fat -                4g                                            2g
Cholesterol -   4g                                             0
Sodium -        2008mg                                   1500mg
Carb -              99g                                          85g
Protien -           12g                                           3g
WW Points -     13                                           10

So that is where we're at.   Mock tuna salad on a big fluffy pretzel - being made on Monday to haul up Tuesday for my two new guinea pigs, Christy and Elena and I to scarf up.   Yum.   Now, what to wear? My best mermaid outfit?    I cannot decide!  :-p

Music Enjoyed while writing this blog:

Soon'r or Later - Hattie McDaniel - Dead serious! <3 <3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OXjQQIQyc4

And this one's for Daddy - who'll never read this blog - but this movie reminds me of him:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=KryS0NxGJXs

Current Motivation:  All about buzzin about.. runnin my lil legs off.

Current Craving: Vegan Eggs Benedict