Healthy Tuna Salad

For Memorial Day, my BF and I decided to go hiking. We were initially going to hike Timpanogos (not to the cave - that's for tourists - but to the peak). When we got to the pay station, we were told that there was a TON of snow up there, and it was pretty dangerous if we don't know what we're doing. Well, we do know what we're doing, but we've hiked in knee deep snow before and there is nothing fun about it.

Instead, we decided to try Mt. Olympus. The peak of Mt. Olympus has eluded us twice - the first time we ran out of time, and the second time was the aforementioned hiking through knee-deep snow. Third time is the charm, right? That mountain was going to be our bitch, end of discussion. We made it! It almost killed me (I think it was a completely vertical hike), but by damn, we made it. It was gorgeous and totally worth it, but it's definitely not something I'm aching to try again in the near future.

Hiking presents its own unique nutritional challenges. Unless you're wanting to carry a ton of weight on your back (which I'm not), you're fairly limited in the food and snacks you can take. Ideally you're going to have snacks high in protein and glucose - the good stuff. You need something quick that's going to hit your muscles fairly easily. While I don't understand the science behind it, I know that jerky, trail mix, gummy bears, dried fruit (apricots, raisins, etc) and fresh fruit (bananas, oranges, etc) are really good choices.

But! I was planning being gone for the day, and I wanted something a little more than just snacks. Let me say, I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate canned tuna. Hate it. If you read my last post, you'll see that I'm obsessing over Jillian Michaels again. One of the good "approved" foods she suggests is Albacore tuna in water. Barf. Strangest thing, though, the other night I was craving tuna. Canned tuna. Gross! When I was at the store I decided to pick up a few cans, just in case an odd craving like that hit again.

As it turned out, this was the perfect solution for our "I want something besides just snacks for the hike" dilemma. I whipped up a little batch of tuna salad, threw it in the bag with an ice pack and it was perfect by the time we hit the saddle. Now, mind you, I dropped a little extra cash for the solid Albacore, but in my mind, totally worth it. I think this would be awesome on a bed of spinach, but of course for hiking we ate it directly out of the little plastic container.

Ingredients:
2 cans solid Albacore tuna packed in water, drained
3 T. plain unsweetened coconut yogurt
2 tsp Dijon mustard
Sea salt, ground black pepper, onion powder and dried rosemary (to taste)

Directions:
Put drained tuna in a medium mixing bowl. Combine yogurt, mustard and seasonings in a small mixing bowl and whisk to combine. I just sprinkled a little of each seasoning - a couple of dashes - but you can do more or less depending on your taste. Stir the yogurt mix into the tuna, taking care not to destroy those beautiful chunks of fish.

Serve immediately or refrigerate in an air-tight container.