"The Black Family Reunion Cookbook"

For the month of July, I will be reviewing "The Black Family Reunion Cookbook", recipes and food memories from the National Council of Negro Women. As you can see, I will be cooking up a storm over the next couple of days to ensure that I get some of the recipes reviewed. I have owned this cookbook for many years and thought it would be a nice cookbook to review. I enjoyed this cookbook because it also includes a section on African American Heritage. It gives information on different African American celebrations and a nice ingredients section that gives definitions of many of the foods we enjoy.

I enjoy cooking all types of cuisine including Caribbean, Indian, Italian and Creole. I am always looking forward to mastering new cuisine. Next up, Asian, more specifically, Thai food. I have always enjoyed southern cuisine. Although I was born in New York, both of my parents have southern roots, South Carolina and Southern Georgia. I grew up in Florida surrounded by my cooking aunts. I learned a lot from them in terms of southern cooking so there was never a need to explore a cookbook on southern cuisine. The recipes that I will choose will be those that are nice for eating in the summer heat.

This cookbook contained many of the same recipes I grew up cooking with my aunts and mother. The recipe I chose was Jasmine's Party Tuna Salad (p. 48). Since my family was visiting and we were attending a reggae festival at a winery, I wanted something cool to eat. The recipe was simple, but it was prepared different from how I normally make tuna salad.

I tend to use recipes for inspiration. They inspire me to be creative. Reminder, there are some changes from the original recipe. My rendition of "Jasmine's Party Tuna Salad". I used 2 cups whole grain elbow macaroni, 3 hard boiled eggs, 2 cans tuna packed in water, 1 cup mayonnaise, 1/2 cup sweet pickle relish, 2 Tbsp mustard, 2 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese, garlic powder, onion powder, ground black pepper and paprika for garnish. Just a reminder, since for me cooking is a family affair, I had some spectators. My sister loves sweet pickle relish, so she kept saying "a little bit more". After she said it around 5 times we were up from the 1/4 cup sweet pickle relish to the 1/2 cup that I used in the recipe. The eggs were special because I spent a week on the farm of a friend in Michigan and they were the last of the eggs I collected from the chickens that week.

I am not a taster, as a matter of fact, I rarely taste the food I cook until I am sitting down ready to enjoy. I often rely on tasters for this job. My dad was my taster on most occasions, and oh how I miss him. My sister is my new taster, for starters, she is the spitting image of my dad, and secondly, she is a great taster just like he was. The recipe turned out great! My guests enjoyed it so much that on the way home from the reggae festival, I had to make a stop at the store and purchase 4 cans of tuna, this would allow for twice as much of "Jasmine's Party Tuna Salad". This was a nice cool salad and made our day listening to reggae even better. I am looking forward to next Thyme!