Go Figure

Go figure--R won't eat PB&J, grilled cheese and rarely touches mac n' cheese, but he loves blue cheese, oysters and olives.

While he eats his fair share of typical kid foods and snacks, trying to figure out what to pack for lunches away from home can present a challenge, as typical sandwiches don't fly for R.

Enter this atypical tuna sandwich, the recipe for which I saw in Cooking Light. Called a Tuna Pan Bagnat, it features tuna, olives, hard boiled eggs, all R favorites. After a little playing with the recipe, I came up with Tuna Pan Bagnat a la Sweet Pea, and it was deemed a "definite make again" by R and SPH. G was too busy shoving his face with the yummy bread to respond.

Tuna Pan Bagnat (altered from a Cooking Light recipe)

1-16 ounce baguette, cut into 4-6 inch pieces
4 teaspoons olive oil
2-5 ounce cans light tuna, drained
1/4 cup diced kalamata olives
2 tablespoons diced onion
4 hard boiled eggs, whites only, chopped
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
10 fresh basil leaves
3 roma tomatoes, sliced

Slice the baguette in half and hollow out the bread to make room for the tuna goodness and drizzle with 1 teaspoon olive oil per piece of bread (you can "reserve" the extra bread for later, or do what I did, use the pieces to appease the boys as I finished dinner):

Next, mix the tuna filling, mixing the tuna and remaining ingredients up to the pepper. Set the mixture aside.

For SPH and I, we first layered on some fresh tomato and basil:

Next, pile on the tuna filling:

And top with the other piece of bread:

The bread soaks in the flavors of the tuna filling, creating a masterpiece of taste!

Make 4 servings.

A perfect lunchtime meal, or a pretty darn good dinner too!

SPC