Easter Dinner- The Results

When we talked last, I was brainstorming for our Tuna Family Easter celebration.

 Well I am happy to say that it was a blast and a relative success as well. 

But first. Before I show you pictures of my endeavor.

We need to talk technical. 

Do you remember those horrible lights that you had in every classroom you sat in from pre-k to college?

Those are called fluorescent lights. 

And they are the bane of my existence.

I have a fluorescent light in my kitchen. But regular filament bulbs every where else, even just a few feet away in the dining room. 

Do you know how stupid hard it is to get food pictures to look normal under fluorescent light? 

No?

 Well. Really I'm just trying to explain why my food photography is sub par. 

No excuses? 

Well then you're really not gonna like it when I complain about my slow internet again and how I have to shrink the photo size basically by blasting the image quality.(I'm working on this issue. blah)

Well. With all this in mind, love me for who I am dears. Even if my pictures look like they were shot with my old school nokia phone camera instead of my Nikon D90.

This is Turk.

This is Turk, having a nice sauna experience. 

This is me rubbing soothing butter on Turks delicious bod.

This is me giving Turk a new "gauge" piercing. (meh meh meh)

 

This is Turk after the tanning bed stage. What a hunk. 

Okay enough of the Turkey. 

My favorite part. 

Stuffing. 

Started with a loaf of french bread. (obviously I just bought one)

WHIP IT! err tear it.

This is pan of corn bread. I forgot to take a picture before I flipped it. ooops.

And tear that up too.

Place it in the bowl and let it sit over night.

Celery. gross.

Fresh Parsley. Yum.

Chicken stock, celery, onion, and lots of other herbs.

Pour the mixture over the bread. And bake it. 

This stuffing was by far the hit of the meal. 

GREAT recipe. 

(I posted the recipes to the stuffing, gravy, and turkey in my previous post)

Easter morning at the tuna can.

 

This is me, little tuna, true to form.

 

This is Turk again. After a bit of chilling out in the fridge.

This is what Big Tuna does when other men like Turk try to come around.

Don't worry Turk. You won't feel a thing.

Only after the roasting, did we find Turk's giblets. 

(oh yea. I went there)

My prince charming.

Aw. My tuna puppy. 

(have I mentioned recently that "puppy" has started to morph into "poopy" in our vocab? We can't explain it. But I now have a beagle that responds to Macey, Puppy, and Poopy)

I don't have pictures of the gravy process. But it was from scratch baby! With the pan drippins of course!

Tuna's mighty sour cream mashed potatoes

Left over zucchini casserole it took to group that past week! (oh yea. I'm not too proud to serve left overs with our Easter dinner meal)

Me. With a plate of gravy. And a few extras.

Mmm. Gravy.

I hope you had a great Easter. 

Love,

Little Tuna

Come close, listen to the story

About a love more faithful than the morning
The Father gave His only Son just to save us

The earth was shaking in the dark
All creation felt the Fathers Broken Heart
Tears were filling Heaven's Eyes
The day that True Love died, the day that True Love died
When blood and water hit the ground
Walls we couldn't move came crashing down
We were free and made alive
The day that True Love died, The day that True Love died

Search your heart you know you can't deny it
Come on, lose your life just so you can find it
The Father gave His only Son just to save us

The Earth was shaking in the dark
All creation felt The Fathers broken heart
Tears were filling Heaven's Eyes
The day that True Love died, the day that True Love died 

When blood and water hit the ground
Walls we couldn't move came crashing down
We were free and made alive
The day that True Love died, The day that True Love died

Now, Jesus is alive

Jesus is alive
Jesus is alive
Jesus is alive
Jesus is alive
Oh, He is alive
He rose again

When blood and water hit the ground
Walls we couldn't move came crashing down
We were free and made alive
The day that True Love died, The day that True Love died

Come close listen to the story

True Love by Phil Wickham

Easter Dinner- Tuna Style

No. We won't be eating tuna. Though I do love tuna. Greg hates tuna. The irony. 

Big Tuna and I went "home" to our families at the beginning of April. That was our Easter time with them. It's really just the way it worked out with Greg's weekend schedule. 

So this year, on Easter it's just the two of us. 

In our tuna can. 

And I'm planning a feast!!

Because if I screw something up.....no one to disappoint! (Greg doesn't count, he can always just go make pb&j. or he'll get nothing...and like it!) 

So. Thanks to the help from my dear friend Pioneer Woman 

(I don't actually know her, but we're bosom buddies no doubt)

I've put together a menu that is sure to be a hit. 

Maybe. 

Unless I screw something up. 

But no one will know!

And we'll eat pb&j instead. 

Have I told you about my recent obsession with pb&j? I really have on average two sandwiches a week. 

They are my sustenance. Everything else is just so I can keep up this salsy physique.

BACK ON TRACK

My Easter feast is really more a practice run for Thanksgiving.

I'm making a 14 lbs Turkey

Complete with 

Homemade Gravy 

And of course

Stuffing

mashed potatoes

Zucchini casserole (or maybe just broiled zucchini, not sure yet)

and maybe some of Greg's grandma's applesauce from the freezer

and some type of amazing dessert that will no doubt involve peanut butter because in the tuna can if it doesn't have peanut butter it's only sub-par.

The only thing missing will be the Cann family mac and cheese! (Cann is my mom's madden name) and my Grandma Cann makes some MEAN mac and cheese.

I just got back from going shopping and getting the extra things I didn't already have. (BAD idea to shopping at any point and time the week before Easter, even if it's in the middle of the day. People in Youngstown don't work. EVER.) 

I had bought the turkey when it was dirt cheap after Thanksgiving this past year, simply for the purpose of what I'm doing now! Having a little "practice run" of a Thanksgiving meal. 

All by myself. 

Well. With Tuna helping, but only after he offers to help 3 times and I continue to turn him down. But then 30 minutes later start crying over the stove while the smoke alarm goes off and guilt trip him because he hasn't been helping.

And tuna puppy, there to lick up the splatters and keep our kitchen floor spotless! 

 So that's our upcoming Easter adventure. I'll let you know how it goes. I'll maybe take pictures. Though probably not of EVERY step cause that just takes a bit too long. And I've already shared most of the recipes I'll be using.

Hope you all have some great Easter plans too!
Celebrate the resurrection in a way that glorifies him. :)

And here is some candy cane zinnia from the arboretum I worked at last summer, just to get you in the spring time mood.

Love,

Little Tuna

Easter Egg Wreath

So first. 

Sorry it's been like three weeks since I've posted. 

Greg and I have internet. It's legit. But it's free. 

It's hard to explain. It's a little box from Sprint, that my Dad set up.

It works off a 3G network. So basically...we have internet that runs only about as fast as your average cell phone. So as you can imagine, trying to upload 20 pictures to a blog post sometimes takes a LONG time. If it even works. So that's my excuse. 

But the other day for some reason it was running REALLY fast! So I took advantage and loaded pictures for like 5 posts all in one day. It was a good day. 

The other day at the nature center feeders I saw a red breasted nut hatch, male and female purple finches, and saw my first tohees of the season. That too, was a good day. 

Remember a few posts ago I showed you this slightly amazing wreath I got for 2 dollars at a thrift shop?

It's not very vibrant in the picture. But it's a nice green color. It was the wreath I placed on my front door during St.P's season.

In case you can't tell, this wreath is already a DIY project wreath. Someone bought this round wreath probably at someplace like hobby lobby (where these go on sale 50% on a fairly regular basis) and then they sprayed it with some craft spray glue and shook all these green plastic flakes onto it. 

Was that explanation detailed enough for you? 

Good. Glad were on the same page about the "details". 

One thing I knew about this wreath when I first bought it was that it had some versatility! If I can buy one wreath, and use it for several different holidays just by tweaking it a bit, I'm a happy camper. So that's what I'm going to show you here. I obviously first took some thin wire that I found in Tuna's tool box.

This. Is a cut piece of wire. 

This. Is a cut piece of wire folded in half.

This. Is a cut piece of wire, folded in half, twisted, and a small piece bent to a 90 degree angle. 

(look at that bokeh. oh yea!) (if you don't know what bokeh is....look it up)(how many parenthesis can I fit?)

(however, I have to downsize these pictures so much, the quality really stinks, the originals are much better)

A plastic egg. Bought at hobby lobby because I had a gift card from my generous mama. If you're looking for bang for your buck on plastic eggs, my bet would be a dollar store. Or even better. A dollar store a few days AFTER Easter and store them for next year. Everyone does that like me right?

Now I took that piece of wire, and glued the bent piece onto the egg.

 

Then I took the egg, with the wire on it and stuck it onto my wreath by twisting the two ends of the wire together from the back of the wreath. Get it? 

Now my wreath went from being a plain green wreath, to a green wreath with random Easter eggs on it. 

Why did I twist them on with wire when it would have been just as easy to glue them straight onto the wreath? 

Versatility. 

I now have the option, if I want to, to take the eggs off and add something else or just use it as a plain wreath again. Will I bother to do that? I don't know. But the point it, it's worth the little extra effort so that I have the option in the future to change it.

Tada! It looks pretty cute from the road if I do say so myself.

 

This is my one and only longaberger basket given to me from my mama when I first went to college (she would be ashamed if she knew I had to google how to spell longaberger, she's a tad obsessed with them). It's kind of got a pink tint to it. Cute for extra Easter eggs left over. I bough the tri-colored tacky moss at hobby lobby too with the gift card. At least now I've got something in the middle of coffee table that's Easter-y! :)

I hope you all are enjoying the first teases of Spring! I am enjoying the weather, and the upcoming song bird migration has me antsy with anticipation! ;)

Love,

Nerdy Birdy Little Tuna