Jason had requested a "casserole" for dinner sometime this week. He is extremely specific and detailed with his requests - I know.
In search of a casserole that would satisfy his matured palette, I brought out my Jean Pare "Main Courses" cookbook:
As I do with most of the Company's Coming cookbooks, I headed straight for the chicken section. No sense looking at the beef or seafood section I figured! HOWEVER - on my way to poultry, I stumbled upon a tuna recipe. Tuna is one of the few fishy things Jason will eat so I was intrigued. This particular tuna recipe was for Tuna Porcupines. Having all the ingredients on hand, I decided to give it a shot.
Ingredients
(I'll write it as it appears in the book but I did double everything for lunches)
7oz (1 tin) flaked tuna, drained
1/2cup long grain rice
1/2cup chopped onion
(I felt creative and used half chopped onion, half celery)
salt
pepper
1 egg, fork beaten
10oz condensed cream of mushroom soup
2/3cup water
Directions
Mix first 6 ingredients together in bowl. Shape into about 14 balls. Place in 9x9inch greased baking dish.
Stir soup and water together well. Pour over balls. Cover. Bake in 350F for about 1 hour until rice is cooked.
To go with this meal, I made some individual salads. One thing I've been using lately in salads is sunflower seeds. You just need a little sprinkle and it adds a nice crunch.
Newman's own salad dressing was on sale today at Safeway so we each picked one out. Jason stuck with a classic Italian and I went for the Sesame Thai (which I can't find a picture of):
The Sesame Thai was SO good and I'm excited to use it more than just salads. It's also a "lightened up" version so it's very low in fat and calories.
MY REVIEW: This was very good and VERY easy. The only thing I would do different is
really drain the tuna. It wasn't a huge deal but I had to squeeze my porcupines like a sponge to get them to stick before putting them in the baking dish.
JASON'S REVIEW: The tuna balls were hearty and I couldn't think of a better meal to load up on protein and satiate my craving for amazing culinary creations (I declined his first review due to repetition and he came up with this one. Impressive!).
On another note, we finally bottled our wine yesterday. We had 2 batches of wine that were supposed to be done in time for Christmas but these kits were both expired (we found out after the fact) and they were taking a long time clearing. Sadly, one batch went down the drain. We did, however, manage to salvage 28 bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon. As our printer is out of ink and we were REALLY sick of looking at this wine on the counter, we got creative with the labels:
Not the fanciest labels I've ever made, but it gets the job done.
Thank you for the great recipe!
ReplyDeleteThe first time I made this recipe, I had the same problem with the balls not wanting to stick together. I used solid white tuna packed in water and squeezed it almost dry.
It dawned on me that I didn't think they sold tuna in water when the recipe first came out. The second time I made this recipe, I used solid white tuna packed in OIL and drained well, and voila, they stuck together easily!
Also, I doubled the soup and water so it had more sauce. Due to the extra sauce, I cooked it at 375 for the first 30 minutes, then turned down to 350 for the second 30 minutes. I microwaved a pouch of frozen brown rice and served the porcupines and sauce on top of the rice. Yummy!
I think the next time I make them I'll use two cans of tuna (10 ounces), rather than the one and a half cans (7 ounces) that the recipe calls for, and add extra rice, onion, salt, pepper, and egg. Also, I think I'll use three cans of soup and triple the amount of water (2 cups). Happy cooking!