Living Lean & Green; How To Cook Green and Healthy For $10 or Less - Easy Tuna Salad

Save money by eating local - really local - out of your own front lawn.

Grow organic (chemical free) vegetables yourself  saves money and gets better health benefits to you and your family. Eating locally grown food is important because the average fresh food item found at the grocery store travels nearly 1,500 miles to get there. Locally grown food uses less fuel to deliver better health and more flavor to your family.

Today the recipe featured uses extremely local foods - my very own bell peppers, tomatoes, red onions, and cucumbers along with several herbs I grew in my water conserving and sustainable front lawn vegetable garden.

Easy Tuna Provencal

2 6 oz cans albacore tuna
1/4 lb diced roasted bell peppers
2 3/8 oz olive tapenade (crushed kalimata olives, yellow raisin, chili flakes and olive oil mixed together)
1 oz diced tomatoes
1/2 oz diced red onions
1 1/3 Tbs olive oil
1 tsp rinsed capers
1 oz thinly sliced cucumbers
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp dill
3  each rosemary ciabatta bread

15 oz side salad
1. Mix all ingredients together except ciabatta and side salad.
2. Plate up and serve as a sandwich with the rosemary ciabatta bread or plain with a side salad.

Servings: 4 -- cost is under $10

To learn more about rain water cisterns and rain exchange systems for your garden and lawn, please go to the sponsor for the "Living Lean & Green; How To Cook Healthy For $10 or Less" video series, Aquascape Inc., at www.aquascapeinc.com. They have an amazing website filled with ideas to help you live more sustainably by collecting and utilizing rain water, particularly to water a garden.

The "Living Lean and Green; How To Cook Healthy For $10 or Less" video series features Chef Ryan Hutmacher, The Centered Chef of Centered Chef Food Studios ( http://www.centeredchef.com) , cooking with me (Shawna Coronado - http://www.thecasualgardener.com) in my front lawn vegetable garden. Together, we are creating meals which cost a family of four $10 or less to prepare and features organic vegetables I have grown myself. 

-- Burpee Home Gardens supplied the vegetables grown in the garden this season. I  write many instructional stories and videos with their incredible vegetable products and donate a large portion of the vegetables to the local food pantry when harvested.

-- Aquascape, Inc. sponsored the videos and supplied the rain water cistern for easier watering of the vegetable garden.

http://www.thecasualgardener.com , The Green Blog - http://www.gardeningnude.com , or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com