A Gluten Free Girl’s Tuna Sandwich

Last year, in a state of mental desperation over the level of scarcity and deprivation I was feeling over being gluten free and a vegetarian, I found myself in a restaurant in Maui saying, ‘I want a plate of pork.”  Just like that.  I hadn’t eaten meat in over 10 years and in one fell swoop, I dove in and broke my meat fast.  Its been a long year of figuring out what my body needs to remain fully nourished, and where I absolutely do not believe that humans need meat to remain healthy, I do think that our dietary choices in many ways lie along a continuum of experimentation, evolution and constant checking in with your body, mind and soul.

My meat eating really remains in the realm of eating out, when typically a vegetarian plate will be centered around pasta of some sort.  So at home, Jon and I remain vegetarian.  But he has always been a pescatarian, and I have never really missed eating fish.  The 3 months I spent in Maui changed that though.  I find that I’m not eating meat when I go out, but I am having fish, or shell fish, and I have to say, my body is responding really well to it.  I think its the oils.  And although I have taken omega 3 or fish oil supplements, the results don’t feel the same.

So with encouragement from Jon, I bought some wild caught white albacore tuna and made a tuna salad to eat over my gluten free rice cakes.  Plain and so not gourmet you say?  Perhaps, but I need to say that it’s good!  Its made for a quick and easy lunch for me when I’m caught up in the middle of a project.  Of course, because I need to beautify my food as part of the practice of conscious eating, I added two pinches of Palm Island Premium Black Lava Sea Salt which I discovered while in Maui, but its sold in high end food stores or through Amazon.

::Tuna Salad::

1 12 oz can of wild caught, dolphin safe white albacore tuna

4 free range vegetarian fed organic hard boiled eggs chopped roughly.

2 tsp of freshly cracked pepper

Regular sea salt to taste

2 pinches of Palm Island Premium Black Lava Sea Salt

1 leaf of romaine lettuce chiffonade or cut into ribbons

2 Lundberg Organic Brown Rice Cakes

1-3 Tbsp of mayonaise

1.  Mix the chopped hard boiled eggs with the tuna, salt and pepper.

2.  The mayo is something you will have to feel out.  Some people like more mayo then others, so I recommend starting with 1 tbsp and working your way to more if you so desire.

3.  Once its all mixed together, you can chill it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or more if you want a cold salad.

4.  When ready, take a large spoon and place the salad on top of each rice cake.  Top with ribbons of romaine lettuce and then sprinkle the lava salt over it for a splash of color and some bursts of peppery salt goodness with each bite!

This makes you enough tuna salad to serve 8.  I keep it around for 2 days and eat it as I get hungry when working on a big writing project and too engrossed to come out of my cave and makes something elaborate for myself.

You’ll notice that the links I have here for the food items are in bulk.  When we live in Idyllwild, which is a small artist community high up on a mountain, I tend to buy in bulk and stock up our pantry so that I don’t have make too many trips off the mountain for food.  These quantities may not be practical for you city dwelling folk!