tuna noodle times 2: deluxe and easy-cheesy there's a battle raging in our house, a quiet battle requiring elaborate diplomacy. it's all about pasta. my zuska doesn't hate pasta but the carbs just don't agree with her and she feels we can live healthier lives without the added starches. the girls are young and don't have the same issues; noodles are fun, and safe, and pretty much anything that comes with pasta is fine with them.

for me, i had a summer in college where i was once so poor it was all i ate. seriously. i would buy a pound of pasta on monday, open the package, and count out five servings strand-by-strand for my daily meal (weekends i'd splurge and have eggs with toast). each serving was tossed with a single tablespoon of butter, salt and pepper and, if i had any, canned parm cheese. you would think i would hate pasta for that reason, the way some people won't eat the "poor" foods they had growing up after they fell into some money. nope, still love it and could eat it three or four times a week if necessary. if i didn't know better.

a couple nights ago a tuna noodle casserole dinner was proposed and agreed by all, however zuska's caveat was that there needed to be more vegetables involved, somehow, because it tends to be more about the noodles and tuna than anything else when i make it. agreed then, deluxe vegetable tuna noodle casserole.

growing up in the glory days of post-war convenience foods, my mom's version of tuna noodle came straight off the can of campbell's cream of mushroom soup. tuna, condensed soup, frozen peas, noodles, tossed together and bakes with a crust (i kid you not) of crushed potato chip dust on top. my heart is racing from the mere thought of all that sodium. we ate it, it tasted okay, i had no idea that tuna noodle was supposed to taste like anything else.

a few years back i realized i hadn't really explored the possibilities of the classic tuna noodle and played around with the kinds of things i was interested in. after a couple of laborious recipes from various sources i took a look at the things i liked and developed the following.

easy-cheesy tuna noodle casserole

• 1 pound of noodles, bow ties or whatever makes sense
• 4 cans tuna
• 16 oz. sour cream
• 10 oz. (1.5 cups) frozen corn
• 10 oz. (1.5 cups) frozen peas (petite are best)
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
  
• ground pepper and parsley flakes to taste

cook the noodles according to the directions on the package. turn off burner, drain and rinse.
in the still-warm pasta pot dump the sour cream, allowing some to remain in the container. place the pot back on the warm burner and add the tuna, peas and corn, stirring until mixed.
in the sour cream container add the soy sauce, paprika, flour and half the parmesan cheese. put the lid back on and shake to mix. you might need to whisk it a bit to get the flour blended.
add the mixed ingredients to the sour cream in the pot and turn the burner on to medium low, stirring occasionaly until frozen veggies are cooked.
dump the pasta back in the pot and mix.
add pepper and parsley to taste.

from here you can serve as-is with a little parm on the individual servings, or put it in a casserole dish and bake in a 375 degree oven until the top browns and crusts a bit, maybe 30 to 40 minutes. you can also cool it, wrap it up and freeze it for up to a week, adding 20 minutes to the cooking time if moving from freezer to oven.

nothing fancy, almost a little embarrassing to admit i serve that to people i love, but it's basic, tastes good, is easy and... uh... uses enough sour cream that no one in the house really cares.

except for this week.

this week i had to come up with something a little more nutritionally substantive. onward to:

deluxe tuna noodle casserole

• 1 medium red onion, chopped
  
• 3 celery stalks, diced
  
• 2 cups mushrooms, sliced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 4 cans tuna, drained, best quality you can afford
  
• 2 cups frozen veggies (peas and pearl onions was my first choice, but i had to settle for corn, peas and green beans)
• 2 15 oz. cans high quality, organic cream of mushroom soup
• 2 tablespoon soy sauce
• 5 cloves of garlic
• hot sauce to taste ( a couple dashes, optional)
• 1 pound broad, flat egg noodles
• 4 oz. monterey jack cheese, grated fine
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup bread crumbs (optional)
• ground pepper and parsley to taste

preheat oven to 375 degrees.
in a medium saucepan saute the mushrooms, onion and celery in olive oil until they start to get soft, around 3 to 5 minutes.
add the tuna, frozen vegetables, soy sauce, garlic and mushroom soup, stir to mix, and heat on medium low.
cook the egg noodles until almost done, drain and rinse.
taste the sauce, adding pepper and hot sauce to taste. more garlic isn't a bad thing either.
add half the jack cheese to the sauce and stir to mix.
return the noodles to their cooking pot and add the sauce to mix.
pour into a 9 by 12 baking or large casserole dish.
top with remaining cheese and bread crumbs (if using) and pop it in the oven.
20 to 30 minutes later -- or when the top is browned and crusty -- remove and serve.

obviously there's a lot more work involved in this version, and a lot more dirty dishes. i also missed that tang of sour cream from my easy version, so next time i'm cutting the mushroom soup in half and adding 16 oz. of sour cream instead. it's still a pasta dish, not the most diet-friendly at that, but it is, after all, a tuna noodle casserole.

some things just are what they are.  ¶ Wednesday, October 25, 2006