Pumpkin Pie

^{Prep time: 5 minutes / Cook time: 50 minutes}

The pie is the first step as it’s easy to prepare, but it has the longest cook time. The recipe I used is from McCormick. While I was thinking about making pie, I didn’t realize that they made a “package” spice that did all the real messy work for you. So hats to them! I had gotten everything from Stop and Shop, but I forgot to get a can opener. I had to head back out to King Kullen (closer drive) to get one as you need one to open the pumpkin and condensed milk.

Ingredients used.

Just as McCormick’s site says, empty the pumpkin can, condensed milk, eggs, and the spice (in the proper proportion). Stir until it’s completely liquidity and place the final result directly in your pie crust. You can make the pie crust or you can get it from the store… like I did. By this time you should have already started the oven to preheat to 425^o degrees. Do not put the pie in until it reaches 425^o degrees!

Your only going to be doing this ‘prebake’ for only 15 minutes. After that set your oven to 350^o degrees and set the timer to 40 minutes. This is the most crucial time. Around the 30 minute mark you should check the progress to make sure the pie has not burned. After 40 minutes take the pie out and let it cool for about 15 minutes or once the pie reaches room temperature. After it is at room temperature, place the pie in the fridge so it cools rapidly under the cover of wax paper or tin foil.

Pumpkin Pie Finished

Tuna Steak

^{Prep time: 20 minutes / Cook time: 10-13 minutes}

Tuna steak is one of those meals I love and must have at least once a month. But cooking it myself has never been tempted before until tonight!

Tuna Steak Ingredients

Ingredients are are a bit more extensive than the pumpkin pie. If you are cooking these two items together, during the cook time of the pumpkin pie you can prepare the sauce for the Tuna steak as you need to prepare the items for cooking in sequence.

• Two Large Garlic Cloves
• One Large Tomato on the Vine (or canned diced tomatoes or 4 small tomatoes)
• Ground Thyme
• Green Olives with or without pimentos
• Olive Oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Tuna Steak

The two major steps to this process is A) Sauce Creation and B) Tuna Cooking. The sauce is what takes forever so lets get right to it!

Go ahead and take apart the garlic cloves and chop them up to bits. On how big you keep them up to you, but the bigger they are the less favor of the garlic gets into the tuna. Then cut up one tomatoes (more if you are making more than a pound of tuna). Then cut some olives. I my picture below, I used lots of olives. You don’t need this many for a half a pound tuna steak, but I love them! Such good flavor!

After you have everything prepared go ahead and start the stove top. Put some olive oil in your frying pan. While it’s warming up (you don’t want it at a complete boil) take the salt and pepper and sprinkle them on one side of the Tuna steak. Then place the side of with Salt and Pepper in the frying pan. Cook for three minutes on each side repeating the process of the salt and pepper before flipping over. You can at this point add some garlic into the frying pan so the tuna can absorb some of the garlic flavor as it cooks.

After the tuna is cooked on both sides remove it and place the tuna on a plate. Now we are going to cook the sauce. First place the remainder of the garlic in the frying pan allowing the flavor to ooze into the pan. Then add the tomato and the olives. Cook the sauce until most of the tomato juice has been removed. Once the sauce has been reduced a little, place the tuna back into the frying pan without it laying on top of the sauce, but it being surrounded instead. This allows the tuna to cook evenly once you place the cover on. Cook for an additional 10 minutes  with the cover and cook until the fish is ready.

I hope you enjoy this meal! It’s really good and really healthy!

Finished Meal