My mother never, ever made tuna casserole, so I'm guessing either my dad didn't like it, and/or it was something her mother never made and she didn't know how. Living on a farm with a freezer full of beef, economical tuna recipes weren't needed to round out the week's menus.

I found a recipe for 'Tuna Fish Scallop' - your basic tuna noodle casserole with cheese in it - in my dad's mother's recipe box. So she apparently made it at least once. Instead of canned mushroom soup, it calls for making a basic white sauce.

My grandma on my mother's side did serve canned salmon, and my mother fed it to us a time or two. But it wasn't prepared in any way - they served it as a cold lunch, and we ate bones and all. That's where the calcium is. I know it sounds yuckky, but it's not that bad. I don't try to foist it off Mr. Kitchentales, but if he's not around, I might open up a can for myself. I heat it up, and sprinkle liberally with dill and citrus grill seasoning in an attempt to overcome any fishy flavor. If I had a nice lemon-cheese sauce, I might put some dill weed in it to serve over.

Have you ever tried tuna in a red spaghetti sauce? I haven't, and don't plan to start any time soon. Here is a recipe I might try if I change my mind. Maybe the capers would make a big difference.

Red Tuna Sauce for Pasta

2 cups prepared spaghetti sauce
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons drained capers, rinsed and chopped
1 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 6 ounce can water packed tuna, drained and flaked
Freshly ground black pepper

Combine spaghetti sauce, parsley, capers and lemon zest in a saucepan; bring to a simmer over medium heat and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Stir in tuna and season with pepper to taste. Serve over cooked pasta.

Here is one for a white pasta sauce with tuna:

White Tuna Pasta Sauce

1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
2 (7 oz) cans tuna
1/2 teaspoon pepper
8 ounces spaghetti

Saute the onion and garlic until soft. Stir in the tuna, season with pepper. Serve over the spaghetti.

The thing I like about these two recipes is there aren't very many ingredients, so if I hate the results, not much time will have been invested. The fox loves pasta with sauce, so I could give the leftovers to him.

I was just now looking at tuna noodle casserole recipes on the Internet, and let me just point out to you that putting crushed potato chips or those French fried onions out of a can will make anything taste good. Likewise, crumbled Cheezit crackers mixed with a little melted butter and strewn over the top. It would be cute to use those Goldfish Crackers since it's a fish dish. But it's still cheating.



By the way, I really like peas in my tuna noodle. Even canned peas are not the end of the world in it. I figure canned fish, canned soup, canned peas - a trifecta. Of course I would never knowingly purchase canned peas, but if someone gave me a can, I'd make a tuna casserole.

My all-time favorite hamburger noodle casserole calls for fine noodles, and stuffing mix on top for the crumbs. I don't make it very often because I never have the right noodles. Wider noodles are not the same, not even if you try angel hair pasta. But today I'm going to adapt it for this can of tuna fish that is mocking me and use angel hair, because that's all I have.


Delicate Tuna Noodle Casserole

1 - 2 cans tuna
1/2 cup chopped onion (see note)
1 cup peas
4 ounces fine egg noodles, cooked
1/2 of a 10 oz. can cream of chicken soup
1 10 oz can cream of mushroom soup
1/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/8 teaspoon salt
Bread Crumbs or stuffing mix
Melted butter
Shredded cheese

Fry onions in oil, and stir in tuna until heated, stir in the seasonings. Add peas and cooked noodles, then add soups. Top with bread crumbs or stuffing mix. Sprinkle butter over the top. Bake 1/2 hour at 350 degrees, then top with cheese, and bake another half hour.

Note: the onions went with the hamburger in the initial recipe. I'm not sure if cooked onions go with tuna, but they kind of complement the stuffing mix.

Let me just point out to you that any recipe that calls for two kinds of canned soup is over the top luxury. Soup is not cheap. But sometimes I splurge and open two cans because life is short. And this calls for only 1/2 can of the cream of chicken - very discerning.

Speaking of the two cans, there used to be a Cajun Rice Dinner (or some such name) in the store. It was a bag of rice and 'seasoning.' The directions said to brown a pound of hamburger, then stir in the rice and seasoning, and three different soups (cream of celery, cream of chicken, cream of mushroom). Add a big bunch of water, cover, and simmer until the rice is cooked and the liquid is absorbed. It was really good, had a spicy kick to it.

Now, you would think it would be no problem to make this from scratch, but I've never been able to get that same taste, even with the dried jalapeno peppers I bought to sprinkle over. It might be because I'm so stingy with the cans of soup. I might have cream of chicken and cream of mushroom, but it'd take a special trip to the store for the cream of celery.