Because I Love You Tuna Casserole
18 Sep 2009 Leave a Comment
in mushrooms, pasta, peas, recipes Tags: canned food, cooking, cream of mushroom soup, radical muffins love good food, retro food, tuna noodle casserole, white sauce
put your biggest pasta pot on to boil, and butter a large casserole dish that can go in the oven. heat your oven to 375°. When water is at a rolling boil, add a box of elbow noodles, spirals or other happy, short shape of creamy sauce holding pasta. Cook until al dente and drain while chopping veggies or making the sauce.
gently wipe clean a pint of mushrooms then separate their caps from their stems. Chop the heads and mince the legs. Set aside in two little bowls; you will need 6 little bowls to set your mise en place for this recipe. The Radical Muffin kitchen recently had a perfect set of nesting glass bowls move in so the cook is blissed out with happy, obsessive pre-chopping and arranging. Peel and chop a medium sweet onion, yellow. Chop three very green, delicate celery stalks. Shred a block of white cheddar cheese on the largest opening on a box grater. Drain two small cans or one big can and one small can of tuna – dolphin safe for heaven’s sake.
in a heavy bottomed sauce pot, melt two to three tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Add the onions and celery when the butter begins to foam, and sauté until soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in a teaspoon or so of celery salt. Toss in the stems of the shrooms then the caps and cook for a bit longer, until they begin releasing their juices. Sprinkle a small handful of flour (about three tablespoons or less; I have small hands) over this cooking base and stir, cooking the raw taste out of the flour for a few minutes.
pour in ½ a cup of heavy cream and a 1 ½ of whole milk slowly as you stir. Cook to simmering but do not boil and stir in a handful of shredded cheese.
eyeball how much of the pasta you will need to fill your casserole dish, and mix that amount with your sauce in a big bowl. If you like, and my best friend likey-likes, stir in a package of frozen peas or fresh if you are so lucky as to have them. You will likely have remaining pasta, for which there are 50,000 uses, and possibly sauce, which is great over broccoli, omelets, potatoes or more pasta.
in the casserole, make an initial layer of sauced noodles, about halfway. Sprinkle with a handful of cheese, and fork the pressed tuna out of the cans and over the noodles. Top the fish with another layer of noodles and liberally grind fresh pepper over these and sprinkle with celery salt. Cover the entire casserole with shredded cheese and dust with paprika.
bake in the oven for about 12 minutes or until the cheese is browned and melted. Traditionally, this is topped with crushed potato chips, which is a pleasure to be tried at least once. Buttered bread crumbs or pink flakes also add crunch. But for the purest comfort, I cannot help but love the gentle chewy crispness of cheese alone.
summer strudel
18 Jun 2007 Leave a Comment
in beans & lentils, cheese, pastry, peas, recipes Tags: basil, phyllo, summer
this basil – in bloom – and veggies from the farmers’ market wrapped up with cheese in phyllo dough
don’t fear the strudel – it is just like a fancy burrito.
heat your oven to 375º and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper – especially if you want to make the strudel and refrigerate it to cook later – or grease it lightly with butter.
Thaw a package of phyllo dough. You are only going to use three sheets so if you are not interested in trying some other phyllo recipes you can make this filling and use it in tortillas like a quesadilla or as a layered frittata. Anyway, onward-
prep your veggies. Scrub clean, leave the skins on, and slice thin:
1 small summer squash. Slice your squash very fine, so you have thin circles edged in green. If it is short and squat rather than long like zucchini, then cut it in half then slice. The one I took home from the farmers’ market was the size of a tennis ball, gum drop shaped, and green with white speckles.
5 new red potatoes, about the size of ping pong balls. Slice them very fine, so you have thin circles edged in red.
peel and slice:
½ of a sweet yellow onion
melt 4 tablespoons (half stick) or so of butter or olive oil in a hot skillet. Pour off all but a table spoon into a cup to use with the pastry later. In the remainder, fry the onion and potatoes until the onions are translucent and the potatoes just begin to brown – about 10 minutes over a medium high flame. Every few minutes, turn them carefully with a fork; the potatoes this thin are delicate.
in a medium sized bowl, mash together with a fork:
1 cup pre-cooked cannelloni beans, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and
¾ cup fresh soft cheese. Sounds vague, but the label on the tub from the upstate organic, humane dairy says “fresh soft cheese” so I don’t know what else to tell you. Whatever local, happy white soft cheese you can get will be delicious.
pick a handful of fresh basil leaves. I ended up with about a half cup of shredded basil – suit yourself. Pick the leaves, and layer them, staggered side by side to make a wide stack, then roll them up like a cigar. Slice along the circular end to make fine shreds. Stir into the beans and cheese, along with:
¼ cup or more fresh sweet peas.
unroll your phyllo dough on a cutting board, and lift one sheet to your paper-lined baking tray. Brush lightly with butter, layer another sheet, brush with butter, third sheet, butter. Drop several tablespoons of the cheese filling onto the stack of phyllo, making a rectangle of filling with an inch of pastry above and below and two inches to its right. Layer slices of squash over the filling then add a bit more cheese & beans. Layer the potatoes and onions over that and a little more cheese and bean. You’ll have more filling than you need. Fold the two inches of pastry to the right over the filling then fold over the top and bottom pastry margin. Using the parchment paper to help you, fold the strudel over and possible over again to seal. Brush the entire outside with melted butter. Slash diagonal cuts across the top.
store in the refrigerator until ready to use (even over night) or bake immediately for about half an hour or until the outside is golden brown.
You can make this recipe vegan by making sure you use vegan phyllo, subbing olive oil for the butter, omitting the cheese entirely, and mashing the beans more thoroughly. Try adding tofutti sour supreme or tahini to make it creamier. Other veganizing ideas – please leave ‘em in the comments.
