Secretly, however you are hoping Aunt Sara does not put tuna in her infamous macaroni salad, please. You pray that Aunt Annie puts some kind of seasoning on her potato salad. Finally, you're hoping your brother Bob doesn’t bring his tuna salad that includes all the salt from the sea. We won’t mention your best friend Sue’s cranberry and lime Jell-O mold. After all, she is your best friend and you have plenty of anti-acid on hand anyway. Well, back to our three salads. (Please note these are fictional characters)

This is what I call the holy trinity of family salads. Of course, there are more salads in this category, but let’s stick with these three. Macaroni salad, Potato salad and Tuna salad. Each of these dishes has one thing in common and that’s mayonnaise. Of course seasoning, but let’s see if we can change that.

Let’s start with macaroni salad. First, please do not add tuna. That’s another salad altogether.

To create or give a recipe isn’t really the intent of this article. I just assume our readers have the skill and knowledge to make these dishes. I just want to present the ingredients that I use. Just to give new ideas.

My list for macaroni salad includes.

. Macaroni

. Pickle juice (I don’t add any more salt) preferably kosher pickles.

. Dice one pickle and add instead of pickle relish.

. Mayonnaise

. Diced celery, onions, red and green peppers.

. Pepper

. (Optional) celery seed

Potato salad

.use new potatoes or red potatoes

. Mayonnaise

.salt and pepper

. Diced green peppers

. Pickle relish

.white vinegar

. Diced celery and onions (optional)

Tuna salad

Open House

I use well drained can tuna with salt and pepper, diced onions and celery. That's it. There are many variations of this salad like adding boiled eggs or macaroni. Again, this is just my way and I hope I have given you some new ideas to use for you macaroni, potato and tuna salads.