That '70's Dinner

For some reason, tuna casserole was a big hit among moms in the 1970's. In fact, it got so popular that the Hamburger Helper company made a companion product: Tuna Helper.

Canned tuna usually needs a lot of help. During my years at Pulaski County Elementary School, my friends complained about that casserole more than any other meal . Maybe it was cheap. Or easy. Or healthy. Or a combination of those three. Who knew? All my friends and I knew was that when Mom was making tuna casserole, we snacked up a storm after school to ease our hunger because dinner was going to be an exercise of shoving spoonfuls of that tuna, pasta, cheese combination into our napkins to be thrown away as we rushed out of the kitchen before Mom knew what we'd done.

Friday night I became that mom.

My motivation for tuna casserole was the calendar and laziness. I had to serve something meatless (because tuna's not meat) for a Lenten Friday dinner, but the thought of going to the grocery store depressed me. Although I knew Stephen would eat whatever I put in front of him, I also knew he'd be underwhelmed at the sight of a baked potato for supper. An inventory of my pantry and then a quick browse of recipes.com told me that my best option for the night was tuna casserole.

I made it like this:

Ingredients:
About 1 1/2 cups cooked penne pasta
1 cup frozen green peas, thawed
1 cup chopped celery
1 can chunk light tuna packed in water, drained
1 can Campbell's Healthy Request cream of chicken soup
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Instructions
Combine the first five ingredients in a casserole dish or aluminum pan (I chose the latter option). Cover with shredded cheese. Bake about 30 minutes at 350.

I served my tuna casserole with roasted broccoli and cauliflower. Reactions were, well, not as bad as I thought:
Me: Not horrible
Davis: "This is better when you make it with chicken." I agree. I'll do that next time.
Stephen: "This reminds me of when I was a little boy. I'll give you this. Yours is much better than my mom's was." Stephen always knows the right thing to say.
Lawson: "Can I just have a tuna sandwich?"

Okay, now we've done that. Good thing we're on a no-repeats program. Next Friday is our last Lenten Friday of the season. Tuna will not be on the menu.