Tuna Patties

Do you sometimes feel like you don't have the "time" to cook dinner so you just go get fast food? You are not alone! I certainly have fallen in that trap more than once.

From March 15 until June 15 of this year, thanks to the COVID-19 lockdowns and closures, I cooked every single meal at home. That's not a huge deal for me because I enjoy cooking. But I certainly had to plan meals to minimize going out to the grocery store. I tried limiting my shopping trips to every 2-3 weeks because it was just such a fiasco to go shopping; from the long lines to the empty shelves. So, I stocked up as much as I could and made a list of meals. During this time I was still working my job since we own a specialty hardware store and are considered essential, so sometimes I wanted to make meals that were quick and easy.

So here are a few tips that maybe you can use to break that fast food habit.

* Make a list of all of the meals your family likes - add a list of ingredients if that helps you.

*Make a list of meals you would like to learn to cook or test on your family.

*Take a look at your calendar to see what appointments or other plans you have so you can schedule easier meals on nights when you are busier.

*Make a meal plan. Doesn't have to be fancy. Just write down what you plan to make for dinner so you can be sure that if you need to take something out of the freezer the night before, you can.

Sounds easy, doesn't it? Well, honestly it is easy. But you do have to change your mindset a little bit. You know what else? You actually will have more time because it is just as fast, sometimes faster, to make a lot of different kinds of meals at home as it is to go get fast food. In fact, I did order a pizza the other night and it took more than an hour for it to get to us! I sure could have made a pizza a whole lot faster and I wouldn't have wasted the time waiting for one to arrive!

You can also make healthier foods. Even if you are making burgers and fries at home, they will be healthier than anything you get at a fast food place.

So that picture that I included up there is one of the meals my family likes. Well, it is only part of the meal actually. It is Tuna Patties. Some people prefer Salmon Patties. I ain't picking out all those bones! Plus I don't like salmon. So we have Tuna Patties. Usually we have lima beans with our Tuna Patties, but sometimes we will have broccoli, or some other vegetable. My son and I like to squeeze a little lemon on our Tuna Patties, but hubby doesn't.

Here's the basic recipe. So, one thing you should know is that I rarely measure when I cook. I've been cooking so long and I cook to what our tastes are. Any recipe can be altered to suit your tastes.

TUNA PATTIES

(makes 4 patties)

2 cans of tuna. (I use Wild Planet Wild Skipjack Light Tuna.)

1/3 Cup Bread Crumbs. (If I am out of bread crumbs, I crush up Saltine Crackers.)

1 egg. (Egg is used as a binder. If your mixture isn't holding together, just add another egg.)

Salt and Pepper to taste. (I add this at the table since we all have different tastes.)

Olive Oil

Drain tuna and place in bowl. Mix tuna, bread crumbs, and egg together. Make 4 patties. It does help to squeeze the mixture together before patting out the patty. Heat olive oil in pan over medium heat. Olive Oil has a low flashpoint. DO NOT HEAT ON HIGH! Add patties to the pan. Cook until the first side is well browned. Flip over and cook until the other side is well browned. Remove from pan and Enjoy!! (It only takes about 15-20 minutes to make these.)

We've been on vacation all week, which isn't really what you think. Vacation for us means our shop is closed unless we happen to be there doing things, which is every day since we have packages to ship out every day. But it also means our schedule is more flexible.

So we decided to go to the aquarium on Friday. Well, we actually had to decide last week to go this week because you have to make reservations because of the Virus and all that. 

This aquarium is new for us. It is the St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station. It was just finished last fall I think it was or maybe it was early this year. Don't remember exactly. It is a nice aquarium, although it is smaller than I thought it would be. The exhibits they have are really nice ones and if you have young children, there are a lot of hands on things for them to do. We don't have small children anymore. My youngest is in high school. But he enjoyed the aquarium as well.

When we made our reservations last week, I had no idea that a Tsunami was coming!! Tsunami is the beautiful sea turtle in my photo. She actually arrived early this week. She is in the large tank with the sharks and many other fish including a very large Grouper. It was fun to watch her swim around and interact with the other residents of the tank! From what I understand her story is that she somehow ended up in a rehab facility and could no longer be released into the wild. The tank she was in at the rehab facility was much smaller than her new home at the St. Louis Aquarium. I am so glad they were able to give her a larger home. She seemed quite happy.

Here is a little history about Union Station. St. Louis Union Station is a National Historic Landmark train station in St. Louis, Missouri. At its 1894 opening, the station was the largest in the world that had tracks and passenger service areas all on one level. Traffic peaked at 100,000 people a day the 1940s. The last passenger train left the station in 1978. 

I was lucky enough to discover Union Station in 1977 when I was in 5th grade. We had a school field trip where we went over to Union Station (I lived across the Mississippi River in Illinois) and rode the Amtrak Train from Union Station to Springfield, Illinois. What a treat that was! That day, I fell in love with Union Station. It was so beautiful!! Then, the next year, the trains stopped running and this magnificent piece of history just sat there. Fast forward to the 1980s when Malls were all the rage. They transformed Union Station into a shopping mall! They also built a hotel inside Union Station. The old train shed was transformed into parking, a lake, some office buildings out on the edge of the property, and a few restaurants including the KSHE Real Rock Cafe which later became the St. Louis Hard Rock Cafe. I don't remember the details, but there was some dispute with the name and the Hard Rock may have filed a lawsuit. Like I said, I'm not sure on those details. Union Station as a mall thrived for many years, then it started to die off. The hotel was still doing business, but very few shops were left. Again this piece of history was just sitting almost idle until a few years ago when they announced there was interest in building an aquarium inside! Excitement started building again for this historic place and now the Aquarium is open, along with a very large ferris wheel called the St. Louis Wheel, a ropes course, mini golf, a carousel, and a mirror maze. I am so glad to see life at this fantastic place that I have loved since I was a child! If you go in the front of Union Station, there is what is called the Whispering Arch. You can stand on one side of the archway and whisper and someone on the other side can hear you clear as if they were standing next to you! The Whispering Arch is marked with a plaque on the second floor of St. Louis' Union Station, nearest the north entrance. It is totally cool!!

I am so very Excited for this new workout program that is launching next week!!

Ok, so I am a Team Beachbody Coach and have been since 2015. I got great results from the programs I have done but I have to be honest and things got really crazy in my life in 2017/2018 and I was not consistent with my fitness or nutrition. But then in 2019, when it seemed things had settled a bit, I started working on myself again. But I was having a hard time with the consistency because I was still kind of recovering from all of the events that had happened the 2 years prior. 

Just like many others, I thought 2020 would be different. This was a new year and I started working on myself again. Honestly, I had put back on the weight and inches that I was so happy to be rid of, and then some. It is true that it is harder to lose and maintain your fitness after age 50. So, the beginning of 2020 I committed to doing one of our newer programs. I had it all mapped out. I even had planned for the time change because it really effects my sleep patterns and sleep is a very important component of good health.

Well, then things got really crazy with the quarantine and everything and I pretty much was in survival mode just trying to make sure we were keeping our little hardware shop from going belly up and making sure my youngest son was doing his remote schooling. But you all know about the quarantine craziness because you had it too probably.

Let's face it, I don't know about you, but I sure have not been working out and eating right since mid-March. Although, I did cook every meal at home for 3 months and actually lost some weight and inches just by doing that.

But now I am ready to take back control of my life. I am ready to fully commit to working out every day and eating healthier. This new program, I think, is just what I need to get back into the groove of things. I hope you will consider joining me.

This program is a 3 Week Program with Strength-Training and Cardio workouts ranging from 25-35 minutes a day. There are 2 very different nutrition components you get with the special challenge pack. You don't have to choose one, you get both! Plus a year membership to our online streaming workout programs and really so much more!!

If you join me as a Coach, you can get the program as early as NEXT week (July 7)! I have a sample of the workout that I can send to you with no obligations if you are interested. Just let me know!

If this is something that sounds good to you, let me know and we can talk about the details.