I Need a Sweet Treat

It has been nine weeks since I lost my job. I didn’t want my blog to be about my job hunt but then again I need to vent. It has been pretty discouraging. I looked at losing my job as the perfect opportunity to do something new. I wanted to take the skills, experience, and my new, proudly obtained degree in marketing to prove to the world that I could be more than just a packaging customer service rep. But, it seems that the world doesn’t have the same attitude that I do. Oh, friends, family, people I meet on the street, at networking functions, and at the Tampa Workforce Alliance agree with me; that I am an ideal candidate. But, it seems hiring managers either are not willing to give a 56 year old woman a chance or my resume gets lost in the mountains of replies for job postings. E mail stalking, calling, and networking tactics haven’t been working either. My next step is to actually plant myself on a hiring manager’s doorstep to see if I can get my foot in the door without getting arrested.

Needless to say I need to indulgence myself in a sweet treat today. Since I am an emotional eater and my comfort foods choices usually contain a sugary treat to make me feel better, I wracked my brains to come up with something that I could make out of the ingredients in my pantry. My logic today is that I needed to make a treat that wouldn’t cost me any money or gas by having to run out to the grocery store. Although my mood today is to end a craving and I do need to watch the calories, I am more concerned with process of actually making something and writing about it. Based on what I found in the pantry, I decided to make what my Mom calls Icebox Cake.

Growing up, Mom’s daily dinners always included an entrée, salad, and dessert. Dinner was served at the dinner table promptly at 5 pm. My brother and I helped to both set the table and clear away the dishes. Mom did all the food shopping, meal planning, and preparation. Dad did the eating, bringing home the paycheck, and dinnertime joke telling. I guess we were the typical small town, nuclear family.

I do not know where this recipe originated. My maternal grandmother also made Icebox Cake. Both Mom and Gramma Olexy loved pineapple; to them pineapple was a real exotic treat. Unfortunately, my brother and I were not big fans of pineapple, but if it was put on the table you had to eat it. I learned to like Icebox Cake because I would sneak the pineapple on to my Dad’s plate when Mom wasn’t looking and just eat all the other sweet ingredients. It was our secret. My brother would just pick it out, refuse to eat it, and had to sit at the table until Mom would give up and send him to bed.

Now, I actually am starting to like pineapple and even have some canned pineapple in my pantry; along with all the other needed ingredients too. So, it’s Icebox Cake for dessert tonight.

Dorothy M. Rinaldi’s Icebox Cake

Ingredients:

• 2 (6 ounce) packages black cherry flavored gelatin mix (or your favorite flavor)

• 2 cups boiling water

• 2 cups cold water

• 1 (16 ounce) package graham crackers

• 2 (8 ounce) cans crushed pineapple

• 1 (12 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed (Mom always made fresh whipped cream)

Directions:

1. Pour the gelatin mix into a large bowl, and stir in the boiling water until the gelatin has dissolved, add cold water. Refrigerate until set, about 3 hours.

2. Make a layer of graham crackers in the bottom of a glass 9x13 inch baking dish. Spoon a layer of gelatin over the graham crackers, and top with a layer of crushed pineapple. Cover with a layer of whipped topping. Repeat the layers all the way to the top of the pan, ending with whipped topping on top.

3. Refrigerate for a few hours before serving to let the graham crackers absorb the flavors of gelatin and pineapple.

Mommy Make Me Some Tuga Fish

Comfort food is supposed to be food that is easily prepared, inexpensive, and provide a pleasant emotional tie associated with childhood. Some of my favorites include PB&J on white bread, macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, real mashed potatoes, pizza, meatballs, fish sticks, and tuna fish. To me, they’re comforting and the most important factor is they’re inexpensive. As a single, working Mom, I was always more concerned with having something to eat and didn’t worry too much about serving healthy foods. I thought it more important to have food around that was quick to prepare, cheap, and tasted good. Things that both my daughter and I would eat and still feel satisfied.

Whenever I asked my daughter, Libby, what she wanted to eat, most of the time her answer was “tuga” salad sandwiches. At first “tuga” salad consisted of canned tuna fish, hard boiled egg, celery, and mayonnaise on white bread. As she got a little older, I was allowed to put other ingredients in the dish to make it not so bland. Plus, we no longer had to just put tuna salad in between two slices of plain white bread. I could now add a little onion and lemon juice to the salad mixture and some lettuce leaves to the sandwich.

Over the years, we’ve experimented with a multitude of ingredients to add to the tuna salad mixture; curry, dill, cranberries, grapes, green onions, red onions, no mayo, flavored mayo, or mustard. We’ve tried it cold, heated, on a bun, in a wrap, inside a pita pocket, or with crackers; you name it, we tried it. I could write a book; “One hundred and one ways to make and eat tuna salad.”

In the end, the old tried and true, simple ingredients have proven to be the best.

Dorothy and Libby’s Favorite Tuna Salad

Ingredients:
4 cans of White Albacore Tuna
4 Hard Boiled Eggs
2 Stalks of Chopped Celery
2 Finely Chopped Green Onions
½ Tsp. Dill Weed
1 Tblsp. Lemon Juice
2-3 Heaping Tblsp. Mayonnaise
Pepper to taste

Mix well, chill, and sandwich it up between your favorite bread slices with lettuce leaves, sliced tomatoes, and American cheese. (I personally like it on crackers.)