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Tuna burger surprise

Kathy Werner - Columnist
Posted 7/23/20

One thing I have always loved to do is bake. I can still remember one of my first attempts to make cookies with my cousins next door—Anne Marie and Elaine. We confused baking soda with baking …

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Tuna burger surprise

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One thing I have always loved to do is bake. I can still remember one of my first attempts to make cookies with my cousins next door—Anne Marie and Elaine. We confused baking soda with baking powder but didn't realize it till after we took the cookies out of the oven.

They were edible, but my cousin (and their brother) Tim was less than pleased that we let him eat the mongrel cookies. They may have ended up in the garbage. You will be relieved to learn that I now know the difference between baking powder and baking soda.

I also liked to cook, a habit that was cured by years of preparing meals for my family. Oh, if I am asked to put something on the table for supper I can manage it, but since March my daughter and son-in-law have been with me, doing the honors in the kitchen, and I'm only too happy to let them. My daughter is a great cook and she taught her husband well.

When I was a kid, my mom had the original Betty Crocker's Cookbook for Boys and Girls, filled with delightful recipes that I was always ready to try out. When my parents would go out for the evening, I was often left in charge of my four younger siblings, and I would treat them to Betty's Tuna Burgers, which they hated and never ate. Rereading the recipe may explain why.

Betty has us kid chefs splitting and buttering six burger rolls. Then we open a 7-ounce can of tuna and put it in a mixing bowl. To this we add 1 cup of diced celery, ½ cup of diced processed yellow cheese, and one small minced onion. Next, we mix in ¼ cup mayonnaise (I'm sure I used Miracle Whip), and salt and pepper to taste.

Then we fill the previously split and buttered rolls with the tuna mixture, and Betty, that wild woman, has us putting the buns in paper sandwich bags and baking them in the oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

One nice feature of Betty's cookbook was that she included comments from “real” boys and girls who theoretically made these items.

“Donna” made the Tuna Burgers one Sunday morning. “We had them for Sunday supper. I made them in the morning, put each one in a waxed paper bag, and left them in the refrigerator. Then we just heated them at supper time.”

Donna did not leave any word as to her family's reaction to the Tuna Burgers, but I can tell you that my sisters and brother were quite unpleasant about it and insisted that I make them fish sticks instead. No sense casting your tuna burger pearls before swine, I always say.

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