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We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Power and Tuna, White Bean and Red Potato Salad with Herb-Caper Pesto

(post, Annie Witkamp)


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If you’ve read some of my recent posts (and even earlier), you may have noticed I wasn’t joking about one thing after another with bad luck. Here’s another one for you and does anyone else get these kinds of incidents day in and day out? Life will get better, I know.

A new tenant attempted to set themselves up with electricity recently in a neighboring apartment (there are 5 apartments up here) and put our place in their name so that when we recently received a small bill, we were confused and emailed the company. Basically, we were told we no longer live here, which is weird. I feel like I still live here with all our belongings sitting around this space, I sleep here, cook here, our mail arrives here but I could be wrong…anyway, I called and fixed it as soon as I read that.

Good thing because they were coming to shut-off our power. I was told to wait at the apartment to make sure they got the radio message from headquarters. They didn’t show, which I was glad for and yet, I waited all day. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that anyone can call and screw up your electricity and adjust your auto-pay without needing any personal information or ‘ok’ from the property owners.

This incident really isn’t that surprising. Since moving to Minnesota it’s been nothing but headaches dealing with utility companies….we’ve lived in about 8 different places in 5 years in Indiana (10 between Indiana and Minnesota) and never had an issue. Add that they were mostly within a huge campus area and I am in awe that nothing like this ever happened. One apartment in Minnesota and it’s a cluster*uck (we use that phrase quite a bit here.)

Thoughts from yesterday after this mess: Friday is on its way which means camping-BREATHE-ok, throw something instead-now breathe and I’m able to move on.

Not only was there that aggravation but it was fairly warm in the apartment so I wanted to make an almost no-cook dish. A month or two ago, the wonderful magazine Food & Wine had a recipe, tuna and white bean salad with herb-caper pesto, but alas, I didn’t have endive so I changed it a bit. Instead, I added steamed small red potatoes and was very happy with the results and will pass it on.

Tuna, White Bean and Red Potato Salad with Herb-Caper Pesto
Serves 6

1 clove of garlic
½ cup flat-leaf parsley
¼ cup basil
1/2 tbsp dried thyme or 1 ½ tbsp fresh thyme
¼ cup capers
2 tbsp almonds (or pine nuts)
1/3 cup olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice
salt/pepper
18-21 ounces of tuna in water or olive oil, drained
2 15 ounces cans of cannelloni beans, drained and rinsed
10-12 small red potatoes, halved or quartered and steamed

Steam red potatoes (mine took about 30 minutes) and set aside to cool.

In a food processor, add garlic, parsley, basil, thyme, capers, almonds (or pine nuts) and a bit of olive oil (not all). Pulse until chopped and then add remaining olive oil and lemon juice. Pulse until desired pesto consistency comes together. Add salt and pepper. In a large bowl, combine tuna, beans, cooled potatoes and pesto. Toss and add more salt/pepper if needed. This is great at room temperature or chilled and can be made ahead 4 hours.