Meal Idea: Pasta with Tuna & Avocado

I’ve had a pretty good stretch of being reaction-free to foods, so am ready to start guinea-pigging a few potential yummies that can be added back into my diet. While it’s tempting to add a bunch back in at once, I know from personal experience that isn’t the wisest idea — if I add back in more than one thing at a time and I have a reaction, well then I have to take all the new additions back out and try them one at a time. So these days I play things safer by being more patient :-).

Today’s new addition was avocado. I picked up a couple Earthbound Farm organic avocados at the grocery store several days ago and have had them sitting on the countertop, ripening. Avocados can be gassed with ethylene, which can be derived from corn, to speed up ripening; they can also be waxed (and that wax can be derived from corn), to help keep them from drying out and to give them that shiny appearance the average consumer seems to prefer.

I’m guinea-pigging these without having done a “background check” on them — meaning, before eating the avocado, I didn’t contact Earthbound Farms to inquire how avocados are handled by them or to get information about the boxes in which the avocados are shipped to grocery stores, I didn’t find out who supplies the avocados to Earthbound Farms, I didn’t find out how the avocados are handled by the supplier, and I didn’t find out from the supplier what is used in the compost and fertilizer. Nor did I find out what’s required by the U.S. government for avocados being brought into the U.S. from Mexico (which is country of origin of these avocados).

Sometimes I do go through all those kinds of steps before trying a food; other times I’m more willing to “try now, ask questions later.” Today, avocados fell into that latter category ;-).

Okay, to guinea-pig a new-to-me food (or brand of food, because oftentimes there can be a difference across brands about if a product is “corny” or not), the best way to do it is to eat it on its own or with other foods I already know are safe for me. Avocado’s not really something I want to eat on its own, so I riffed a bit on what used to be my most favorite sandwich: Tuna Salad with Avocado. I don’t have a source for a corn-free bread, and, since the typical sandwich-fixin’s are a no-go for me for a variety of reasons, I don’t have an itch to make bread from scratch — so, I went to my old stand-by: pasta!

Since I was trial-testing avocado, I kept the ingredient list for this meal to a bare minimum.

PASTA with TUNA & AVOCADO

spaghetti

canned tuna (I use Wild Planet No-Salt Albacore — see comment)

avocado

1. Cook your spaghetti according to package directions; drain.

2. Flake the tuna and it’s juice (see comment) into the empty, but still warm, pan. Pour the drained pasta on top of the tuna; toss with a fork to combine.

3. Add in the avocado, using the fork to gently combine the avocado with the pasta and tuna. I smooshed some of the avocado and left the rest in small chunks. Salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!

Options:

~ If you can source safe lemons or limes, or a safe lemon juice or lime juice, before adding the avocado to the pasta, you could whisk together a bit of that juice with the avocado. This would give the dish some zing, and also add some moisture (it’s fairly dry otherwise).

~ A safe Parmesan cheese grated over the top would be yummy!

Comment about tuna: Several of us at Avoiding Corn can successfully eat the Wild Planet No-Salt Albacore, but a few people have recently reported possible reactions to the tuna, although those reactions haven’t 100% been pinned down yet as being to the tuna itself (could possibly be to other ingredients/foods eaten at the same time). I have not reacted to the tuna. Some folks have luck finding a safe canned tuna locally; I’ve reacted to the tuna that appears (by the ingredients list on the label) to be corn-free that I’ve found locally, so I buy the Wild Planet in bulk through Amazon. Personally, I find the taste of the Wild Planet tuna to be far superior to any other canned tuna I’ve ever had — miles tastier, in my opinion. It has no added water or oil or other liquids such as vegetable broth, and for that reason I add the juice into my pasta right along with the tuna. For those who are interested in such things, their cans are BPA-free and the tuna is low-mercury (but I still limit how often I eat it).

Meal Idea: Coconut-Crusted Sweet Potato Patties

I’ve been looking for a less butter- and brown sugar-laden way to satisfy my sweet tooth than by baking Blondies. Granted, Blondies have been the only high-fat, sugary food in my diet since going corn-free, but, even so, it’s time to rein in on the frequency with which I bake (and eat) them. These coconut-crusted sweet potato patties are sweet without being *too* sweet.

COCONUT-CRUSTED SWEET POTATO PATTIES (makes 4 patties)

1 cup cooked sweet potatoes (not canned; cooked from raw)

1/2 T. salted butter, melted (I use Organic Valley Salted)

1/2 T. light brown sugar (I use Dominos)

1/4 tsp. cinnamon (I order from Mountain Rose Herbs)

unsweetened coconut flakes (I order from Tropical Traditions)

1. I like to bake 3 or 4 sweet potatoes at a time, then scoop out the insides and keep in the fridge for a quick snack or meal. If you don’t have prebaked sweet potatoes, scrub the raw potatoes well, poke a couple times with a fork, then bake on a foil-lined baking sheet at 425* for anywhere from 45 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes, depending on the size of the potatoes. I test doneness by squeezing the potatoes gently — if they give easily, they’re ready. When done, scoop out the insides and let cool.

2. Preheat oven to 350*. Line a baking sheet with foil.

3. Use a fork to mash together the 1 cup sweet potatoes, the melted butter, and the light brown sugar. When well mixed, spread the mixture out onto a plate, then sprinkle the cinnamon across the surface of the mixture; use the fork to stir the cinnamon into the mixture.

4. On a separate plate, sprinkle about a cup’s worth of unsweetened coconut flakes. Divide the sweet potato mixture into fourths, then form each fourth gently into a patty. Set one patty onto the coconut; press coconut onto the top and sides of the patty. Very carefully move the patty to your foil-lined baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining three patties, adding more coconut flakes as needed. Any coconut flakes left on the plate can be sprinkled onto the baking sheet, around the patties.

5. Bake about 10 minutes, until crispy and lightly browned. The coconut flakes you sprinkled around the patties will be more toasted than those forming the crust on the patties — I like sprinkling the extra, toasted flakes onto the patties, for added crunch.

Option: You could add some minced walnuts into the sweet potato mixture before forming the patties.

Note: The recipe I was inspired by is HERE. It calls for marshmallows, which are generally VERY corny. Some folks are able to source corn-free marshmallows around Passover, so that’s an option if you want the marshmallow center in these sweet potato patties . . . or you could make your own marshmallows.