Tasty Tuna Casserole

Here's another recipe from my much loved Quinoa 365 cookbook:

Tasty Tuna Casserole
2 cups water
1 cup quinoa
3tbsp butter
3/4 cup finely diced celery
3/4 cup finely diced white onion
2 cups chopped white button mushrooms
1/2tsp minced fresh garlic
2 cups milk
1/4 cup quinoa flour
1/4tsp salt
pinch ground pepper
two cans flaked light tuna, drained
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
1 1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 cup thinly sliced green onions (the one ingredient I forgot to purchase!)

Bring the water & quinoa to a boil in a medium saucepan. Cover, reduce to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Turn the head off and leave the covered saucepan on the burner for another 6 minutes. Fluff with a fork and allow the quinoa to cool.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Lightly spray cooking oil in a 3.5L casserole dish.

Melt 1tbsp of the butter in a large saucepan. Saute the white onion and celery until the onion becomes translucent, about 8 minutes. Add the mushrooms and garlic and continue to saute until the vegetables are tender, another 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Combine the remaining 2tbsp butter, milk, flour, salt & pepper in a medium saucepan. Cook on medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until thickened, about 5 minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat.

Add the quinoa to the vegetable mixture in the large saucepan, along with the sauce, tuna, peas & 1 cup of the cheese. Stir to combine well and pour the mixture into the casserole dish. Top with the remaining 1/4cup of cheese and green onion. Place on the center rack of the oven and bake for 25 minutes, until bubbling hot.

MY REVIEW: This recipe dirties a whole lot of dishes so be prepared! It's also fast paced and you might require assistance getting things out of the fridge and chopped if you're not ready. In the end, it was worth it. I've been craving tuna casserole for quite a while now and this was delicious AND nutritious.

JASON'S REVIEW: It's the casserole that keeps on giving.

Tuna Porcupines

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.