Dance After Dark Photography

Diving from Groyne Prohibited

My mother used to make tuna casserole pretty often. It was an easy meal to prepare after she’d been working all day, and we could keep the ingredients on hand more or less indefinitely. Boil some noodles, drain them, and then mix in canned peas, canned tuna, and some cream of mushroom soup. Salt and pepper to taste, and there you have it. I still like it her way, but I just can’t bring myself to cook a meal without some fresh vegetables.

Here’s what I did:

I started off by boiling about a pound and a half of medium-sized shell pasta. Next I sautéed the onion in butter, olive oil, and kosher salt just to the point of caramelization, and then I added about 7 cloves of chopped garlic, 4 carrots cut into half-medallions, and 8 oz of mushrooms. A little more olive oil so the mushrooms won’t dry the whole thing out, plus some soy sauce for flavor and color. I completely forgot to cut up the red bell pepper I’d bought, so I’ll save that for another day. While the veggies finished simmering, I opened and drained two cans of tuna and a can of English peas. I rinsed the tuna to get as much of the oil out as possible. That helps with the fishy smell.

At this point the pasta was done, so I drained it, put it back in the pot, and added a can of cream of mushroom and a can of cream of chicken. (I can make a basic bechamel sauce, but I was hungry before I started cooking. I wanted it to go fast.) Added more salt to the noodles & sauce and lots of fresh-ground pepper. Mixed it up a bit, then added the can of peas and mixed a little more.

For the sake of my roommate and our houseguest, I pulled some of the veggies and mixed them with the pasta pre-tuna. Then into the sautée pan with the tuna. Added a little lemon juice to cut the fish taste, and let it simmer so the tuna would soak up the garlic and butter. I let it go for about 5 minutes while the pasta cooled, and tadaa! It’s enough to feed a small army, but that’s because leftovers make my life simpler.