My favorite recipes: (This week's entry) - Tuna salad

Hi. ...I think I'm going to post my favorite recipes that have worked for me for *thinking* 6 years now. ...I was a rower for a Big Ten school that shall remain nameless.....*BOILER UP* ;) ...and I rowed in the lightweight division, which was the under 160 division. My natural weight (at that time) was 168, so I was constantly holding off 8 pounds in order to make weight. We had daily weigh ins, and we had to be within 3 pounds of weight....so this kind of made it a little difficult to make food choices....I ended up coming up with a few meals that worked exceptionally well for me and now that I'm a graduate and off on my own, I still keep up the diet. Although, I'm not trying to hold weight off anymore...I'd like to gain myself up to 185 with my competition composition of 2.8% body fat. I'm at 9.4% right now....I know..disgusting. But oh well, I kinda slacked off this winter. What can I do except pick back up and carry on? There's absolutely no other way to reach my goal. Remember that.

But, that's my background. Let's get a couple of recipes for some meals up here:

1 can of tuna IN WATER!!!! Never get tuna in oil.
10 spoonfuls(about 3/4 a cup) of plain fat free yogurt
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
a handful of chopped, diced onion(your favorite kinds....I use red onions)
a handful of chopped, diced pepper(your favorite kind...I use red bell pepper)
2 blood oranges, peeled and sectioned..remove as much of the pith as you can
ground pepper, rosemary, thyme, coriander, cumin, any spices you like to taste
a handful of Quaker Old-Fashioned oats(don't use instant or quick)
a handful of baby spinach for garnishment(but don't think that it's not part of the meal ;) )

Carb high version:
2 slices rye bread with no "processed" ingredients(might be hard to find...I use Aunt Millie's...it's out of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Hopefully, you're lucky enough to have it available in your area)
Carb low version:
3 sticks of celery chopped into manageable sections...they'll be used as boats

Drain the tuna as much as you can, then rinse it and drain it again. Flake the tuna out of the can in a bowl. Add the diced onion, diced pepper, yogurt, and vinegar. Combine until it is fairly homogenous. Add spices that you chose and combine again until they are worked into the mixture. At this point, it should have the consistency of tuna salad made with mayonnaise. Trust me, you won't taste the tartness of the plain yogurt ;) ...Now add the blood orange pieces and the oats. Fold them all together until the oats soak up most of the liquid and the entire mixture essentially becomes a cake. Voila, tuna salad is made.

Spoon the tuna salad onto your rye bread and top with spinach pieces or shove spinach into your celery boats and stuff the celery with the salad.

I think that it tastes fine like this. The tuna salad should be moist enough that you don't really require any condiments, but sometimes I like to add another flavor to the meal. Here's my dressing:

5 spoonfuls of plain non-fat yogurt(I use Stonyfield Farm...you can get it at Wal-Mart and pretty much anywhere else)
2 spoonfuls of low-sugar blueberry preserves(I get mine at Trader Joe's)
1 - 1/2 tsp of balsamic vinegar

Might not sound good, but if you've got the ingredients that I have listed, trust me it tastes incredible. It makes a perfect blueberry vinaigrette.

Stir everything together until it is homogenous. Spoon onto rye bread pieces. BLAM. Done.

This recipe is incredibly modular...you can change the flavor of it by simply changing the type of onion you use, the pepper chunks, the vinegar...I use orange muscat champagne vinegar every once in a while...adds a GREAT citrus flavor. You can change out the fruit that's included to change it completely. Try substituting half of an apple, chunked for the blood oranges. The dressing is incredibly flexible too. You can replace the blueberry preserve for orange marmalade or raspberry preserve or.....whatever fruit you like...try apple butter when you put the apple in the tuna salad ;)

Enjoy

The vinegar is important because it dulls the tartness of the yogurt...plain yogurt tastes pretty nasty by itself : P.....but balsamic vinegar also lowers the GI value of any food that you put it on.  That means that it takes longer for it to digest...so you'll be fuller for longer, and you'll basically be putting yourself on an IV with a calorie drip into your system.

Do you have the nutritional values for these?

lol...whoops. Yeah. I can get that together real quick:

I'll make sure to list nutritional information up front from now on

the spinach will add a negligible amount of Kcalories, protein, and sodium(serving size 3 oz...this recipe calls for around 1/8 - 1/4 oz)
spinach: http://www.calorie-count.com/calories/item/92 311.html

Recipe Nutritional Info:

1st column: with bread 2nd column: 1/2 recipe 3rd column : celery/ no bread

Kcalories:      545                     272.5      385
Fat:               5.5 g (0 g sat)    2.75         2.5
Protein:         55 g                    27.75      47.5
Sodium:         500 mg               250         225
Fiber:             12 g                   6             10
Calcium:        56%                    28%        60%
Vitamin A:      12%                   6%          16%
Vitamin C:      240%                 120%      270%
Vitamin D:      25%                   12.5%     25%
iron:               22%                   11%        6%
riboflavin:       16%                   8%          0%
thiamin:          30%                   15%        0%
niacin:            20%                   10%        0%
folic acid:        20%                   10%        0%

Ingredient nutritional info:

very low sodium chunk white albacore tuna
---------------------
170 Kcalories
2.5 g fat 0 sat
70 mg cholesterol
80 mg sodium
40 g protein
iron 2%

yogurt (1/2 a serving)
---------------------------
55 Kcalories
0 g fat
80mg sodium
8 g carbs - all sugar
5.5 g protein
40% daily calcium
25% Vitamin D

vinegar adds 20 calories and not much else

2 slices bread
--------------------------------------
180 Kcalories
3 g fat 0 g sat
340 mg sodium
34 g carbs
6 g fiber
8 g protein

30% thiamin
16% riboflavin
4% calcium
20% iron
20% niacin
20% folic acid

2 blood oranges
------------------------------
140 Kcal
32 carbs 23 g sugar
6 g fiber
2 g protein
12% Vitamin A
12% calcium
240% Vitamin C

This is a great idea as I'm always looking for recipes ;-) Where will you be posting these, in the food forum?

Yeah.  I'll go ahead and post them here.  I'll also put them in my profile so anyone can find any of them easily