Tuna patties

Where I come from this would be a more complicated process involving boiling potatoes, cutting them, making a mash out of them with a decent flavor, and all that before you can even START making the dish itself.
I make the pantry version because it's quicker.

1 pouch instant mashed potatoes (there's a variety of flavors, pick any one you like)
Canned tuna (I use 4 small ones because that's usually what's in my pantry. You could get a big can, I guess)
1 egg
Bread crumbs
Crushed garlic
Parsley (FRESH parsley changes the flavor of these things tremendously, but I don't have any. =( )
White pepper
Olive oil

Preheat oven, 400F.

Make the mashed potatoes following the directions on the package. Mix in the garlic (as much as you want), bread crumbs, parsley, and white pepper. Set aside to cool a bit while you drain the tuna.

Add the tuna BEFORE adding the egg, because those potatoes retain heat well and you don't want scrambled egg in your mix.

Make patties in whatever shape or size you desire, brush some olive oil on both sides, and set on a cookie sheet. Top rack, 400F for about 15 minutes (they'll start looking a bit dry), then flip them, turn oven down to 375F, and give them another 15-20 minutes.

This would make about 12 decent patties, but I skimped a bit and they ended up being 13, so I didn't have room for that last one on the cookie sheet. I made it in the toaster oven and it came out crispier and more golden than the others (which I kinda liked better, personally).

You can eat these in sandwiches if you'd like. I prefer them over lime juice-sprinkled iceberg lettuce. They taste like summer to me and my 9-year-old loves them.

(I also put some grated ginger in them to appease my ginger fixation. The child did not notice and I didn't feel the need to fill her in)

Tuna Ring, in which my ability to speak English deserts me

It's Friday.

I don't observe Lent, but it does give me an excuse to make some people around here eat fish.

There's a delicious abomination called a Taco Ring, you may have heard of it or even eaten it before. It involves croissant dough, ground meat, taco seasoning and a metric ton of CHEESE. It's pretty awesome, really, but I always feel like such a phony Mexican when I make it, because, seriously, taco seasoning??

Anyway, as I said, it's Friday. No meat for J today. We IMPROVISE around these parts.

Tuna Ring
Croissant rolls dough
Canned tuna (I used a 12oz can)
1 metric ton of shredded cheese
1 egg
Bread crumbs (what, about 2 tbs.? Give or take?)
Finely chopped parsley
Sprinkle of ground ginger
Sprinkle of garlic powder (which I hate, but this was a lazy, fakin'-it sort of meal)
Annnnnnnnnd...
Mashed potatoes. Again, I'm going half-ass on this, so I used instant. This was about making a Really Quick meal, not a gourmet one, bear with me.

Preheat oven, 375 degrees.

Drain tuna, mix with everything else.

Lay out the croissant triangles on an ungreased cookie sheet so they make this circle thing. It's a tricky thing, and I'm sure a masters degree in applied geometry would help make this easier, but do the best you can. Spoon the tuna mush onto it and fold the dough over it so that you end up with an actual ring. I could have taken pictures, but didn't. What. I'm just going to use pictures other people have successfully taken of a taco ring.


My croissant circle of doom never looks that cool.

Bake according to the directions on the dough can, usually 12 or so minutes at 375 degrees or until a nice, golden brown.

Mind you, this is what/how much I made. Yeah, after piling up all that tuna and the mashed potatoes and ALL THAT CHEESE, it was almost too much for just one can of croissants. And maybe my little circle of death would've looked much neater if I'd used two, but it worked out.

If I'd wanted to spend more time on this thing, I may have used roasted (or super finely chopped fresh) garlic, fresh grated ginger, maybe some steamed spinach. I'm kinda feeling some chopped green olives, here, or jalapeno.

Maybe next time.