Amanda's Tuna Casserole

On the Fridays of Lent, Catholics abstain from meat. I don't eat very much meat as it is, so this isn't usually a very big deal for me. However, I haven't been to the grocery store in ages, which required some creativity on my part this evening to cook any sort of dinner at all, let alone one in observance of Lent.

So, I rummaged through my kitchen, and this is what I found of note: canned tuna, croutons, penne pasta, Laughing Cow cheese wedges (garlic flavor), and frozen veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots). I pondered about what to do, and concluded that these ingredients were sufficiently close to tuna casserole to give it try! It came out really well, so I thought I'd share the recipe here (based loosely on the real recipe for tuna casserole in my Betty Crocker cookbook).

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Amanda's Tuna Casserole



Serves 3.

Ingredients:
1 cup uncooked penne pasta
2 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2/3 cup milk
2 Laughing Cow cheese wedges
1 cup frozen vegetables
1 can tuna in water, drained
1/2 cup croutons, crushed

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Prepare pasta and frozen vegetables as directed.
3. Meanwhile, melt one 1 tbsp. butter over low heat. Stir in flour and salt over medium heat, stirring constantly until smooth and bubbly. Gradually stir in milk, and heat to boiling. Add cheese; stir until melted.
4. Stir in pasta, vegetables, and tuna; mix well. Spoon into casserole dish. Bake 20 minutes or until hot and bubbly.
5. Meanwhile, in resealable sandwich bag, crush croutons. Melt remaining 1 tbsp. of butter, combine with crushed croutons in small bowl. Sprinkle as topping over casserole in last 5 minutes of baking or until toasted.

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I'm usually the type of person who likes to follow a recipe by the letter, so this improvisation was a veritable culinary adventure for me! It was a lot of fun to tweak the recipe as I went along to get the consistency that I wanted. It made me wonder if anyone else has ever put these ingredients together in exactly this same way. Is it really possible for me, in the 21st century, as one of 6.7 billion inhabitants of this planet, to do something completely unique? Food for thought.