Casseroles are probably my least favorite way of cooking—with one exception, good old-fashioned tuna noodle casserole. It is comfort food, quick and easy to make. I made it so often as a Friday night supper that to this day my kids don’t care to eat it, but when my granddaughters visit me here in Abiquiu, they invariably ask for it. As I write this in September, we are experiencing an unusual cold front (almost down to freezing the other night), and that calls for putting on a sweatshirt, starting a fire in the wood burner, and making a tuna noodle casserole, which I did today. When I became an empty-nester back in Illinois, my Friday night meal of choice was to eat out. I had three favorite restaurants in my town, one upscale Italian, one German, and the other a Japanese restaurant owned by a Korean fellow. Invariably, I sat at the bar as I so enjoyed watching sushi being assembled while drinking sake—warm in winter and cold in summer—from my personal cedar sake box. When I moved to New Mexico, the owner’s son gave me the box, which I still have, and a bottle of sake. Making a large casserole means having leftovers, which is fine with me. I’ll have some for breakfast along with my hot, hot coffee, and I even eat tuna noodle casserole cold. EnJOY This simple affordable recipe is close to the original developed during the 1930’s Depression by the Chicago-based Jay’s Potato Chip Company—then named Japp’s, a name that was changed during WWII. The Jay’s plant on Wells Street on Chicago’s southside was a long city block from my grammar school, St. George, and, around 10 a.m. every morning, the heavenly smell of freshly fried potato chips would perfume the air for blocks around. When I went home for lunch, I deliberately chose to walk by the Jay’s plant just to breathe deeply of that smell, which really spiked my appetite. The closest potato chips to Jay’s these days are the crisp kettle types. I have used home-made cream of mushroom soup but found that the canned version is better. Trying to economize once, I bought generic tuna, generic noodles, and generic potato chips. The result: Generic Tuna Noodle Casserole. Never again!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
May 2021
Categories |