All Kinds of Jacked Up Smoked Tuna Fish Salad

Ridiculous.  I mean, maybe others have thought of this before but tuna steaks smoked on the grill will make the most ridiculously good tuna salad you have ever eaten. That is of course, if you like a gentle smoke flavor that doesn't overpower the tuna and of course, you like tuna!

We are a sushi obsessed house. When you are trying to feed 3 teenage boys, sushi is almost the last thing in the world you want them to love... Live and learn. lol! And I am only half joking because anyone who loves sushi knows that it can be expensive. Take 3 boys into consideration and it can be downright ghastly when the check comes.  But Tsunami's children and I have gotten closer because of it.  Who knew that a way to a teenage boy's heart is through his sushi lovin' tummy? Um... I had a hunch.

But of course, they didn't know it. They didn't even know they liked sushi! But boy, once they got the sushi bug, they got it bad. I mean real bad... and every time you ask them what they'd like to have for dinner, even before we ask, the first topic is can we go have sushi? And if the answer is not always yes, then the next question is... Can we make it at home then?

So naturally, being a total pushover in the kitchen, I almost always say yes. Actually it is something our youngest and I like to do together and while it can be time consuming, we've almost gotten it down to an art. He makes me so proud and he does it so precisely, down to the tools he likes to use, how he sets up his workspace ahead of time and the methodical way he goes about his new art. He even likes to go shopping with me to pick out the ingredients.

So inspired (borderline obsessed), it tickles my heart to encourage him. He likes to ask me if I think that an American boy could be a famous sushi chef. And in my heart of hearts, I think he could be one of the best! Of course, I tell him so all the time.

Let's face it, even if he never pursues it as a young adult, he will never forget how to do it and some quirky, beautiful, funny little girl will fall in love someday with a beautiful, sweetheart of a boy that can make sushi. Aw...

But smoked tuna, you say? I know, sounds a little messed up, but what better way to use the leftover tuna steaks after a sushi extravaganza? We do a great deal of smoking and grilling to begin with and we also eat quite an enormous amount of canned tuna fish, go figure. And one night, Tsunami asked me how weird it would be to smoke the tuna steaks when we were smoking the massive pork belly we had prepped the weekend before. And I said, "Seriously weird, hon.... Let's do it!"

And that is how we came up with smoked tuna fish salad.  Here's what you need:

• 1 lb, give or take, fresh or thawed frozen tuna steaks
• Lemon pepper salt
• Black pepper
• Hickory wood chips (for the smoker, duh? :)

We lightly season the tuna steaks with lemon pepper salt and ground black pepper. If you don't have lemon pepper salt, regular salt and pepper will do just fine but Tsunami did it this way and it was so freaking good.

Now, we don't just fire up the Egg for a couple of tuna steaks... But we will definitely smoke just about anything we can find when we do have the Egg fired up for smoking and grilling.  It may sound funny, but some days Tsunami will literally have something in the oven, on the stove and both grills going, no lie!

This past weekend, we had a 14 lb pork belly cured and ready to go for our family get together and while we were at it, we threw on the tuna steaks, a healthy harvest of jalapeños from the garden, a few ripe Georgia peaches and a few Anjou pears. Yep, pears. Have to say, smoked pears are one of our favorites and every time we do them, they are devoured in a heart beat.

We put the tuna steaks on the grill, way off and above direct heat, usually on the rack above the pork belly or whatever scrumptious goodness we have going down below. Same with fruit or veggies, which we will often put in little tin foil packets just to make it easier to move and remove from the grill when they're ready.

We let the tuna steaks smoke for about 45 minutes to an hour and our usual temperature for the grill is right at 190 degrees F. The sweet spot.

And while I won't bore you with the details of how to make tuna salad, suffice it to say that the smoked tuna is flaky, moist and delicious all on it's own.  It breaks up easily and the rest is just a matter of preference. Everyone has their own favorite way of making tuna salad, whether it is the way your mama made it for you when you were a kid or the grown-up version you have adapted over the years.

I will tell you that our favorite way is much like a traditional tuna salad, but I will go to the trouble of making homemade mayo as well.  Here are a few of our "new" favorite additions:

• Walnuts
• Apples
• Red Onion
• Red Celery
• Craisins or dried cranberries
• Diced Jalapeños or fresh chiles
• Red globe seedless grapes, halved
• Black olives, sliced

Seriously, my mouth just watered... didn't yours? We don't necessarily do all of those at once, but I don't see any reason why you couldn't.

Bananas for Banana Bread

We have an abundance of bananas here in Florida. One of my favorite fresh produce stands, Rorabeck's, offers their ripe produce by the bucket from $1-3 and of course, it tends to revolve around what is in season and available for the week.

We are lucky to get ripe bananas year round so the banana buckets, if you know where they keep them are filled with 5-6 lbs of ripe bananas for an unbelievable price of $1. And it isn't just the Dole or Chiquita cavendish bananas, but also the apple and mini bananas that grow so readily in our tropical climate. Some of them are bruised, but not at all badly so I've been picking up 2 or 3 buckets at a time for our breakfast smoothies.

For breakfast smoothies, you can't beat it. We peel the bananas and throw them all into a ziplock freezer bag and freeze them for the kids' breakfast shakes. It's easy to take out what you need and freezing them is an easy way to make the most of an excess of this versatile fruit. And rather than water down the fruit with ice in the smoothie, the frozen banana performs the same role but adds a flavor profile that goes with almost any other fruit or veggie we have on hand. Its such a great way to get fresh fruits and veggies in their diet while actually making it feel decadent creating a texture like ice cream.

Another great way to use these abundant bananas is to make, of course, banana bread. I mean who can resist warm-right-from-the-oven banana bread?

Ingredients:

• 2 ripe bananas (2 3/4 c mashed bananas) 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 c all purpose flour
• 3/4 c brown sugar
• 1/2 c butter or coco oil
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

For 4 small or "mini' loaf pans, I double the recipe above and it is perfect. Fill almost to the top of the loaf pan. No need to grease or flour the loaf pan as there is ample fat to help it come out easily, especially if using loaf pans with non stick coating.

Bake:
Bake at 350 F degrees for 60-65 minutes. I check it around 55 minutes for the mini loaf pans.

Variations:

• Walnuts and White Raisins
• Nutella
• Double Dutch Chocolate
• Dried Cherries

Don't like bananas? Use applesauce in place of the bananas. But with so many beautiful varieties of bananas available at the moment and the ridiculously low prices I have to pay for ever-so-slightly blemished fruit, I just can't help but get inspired to experiment.  

Might as well make banana bread while I can because it won't be long before we are completely packed up and off on our adventure overseas. I can't wait to see what will be seasonally available and abundant in the South Pacific!