Tasty Tuna Casserole for Two

I spent the weekend in Liverpool with Judson and a friend of mine from college, doing all the things you'd think we'd do in Liverpool... a lot of Beatles stuff and a lot of pint-drinking, mostly. While I was there, it struck me how I was walking into the very places my mom would have dreamed about visiting fifty years ago, and how the magic of that city still feels very real and not at all cheesy, the way I would have expected. I got to see Eleanor Rigby's actual grave, you guys. I didn't cry, but I totally thought about it. We danced in the Cavern Club, drank a pint at John's favourite hole-in-the-wall bar, and drove down Penny Lane on the sunniest day I've seen since we left Miami in January. (Oh, and we even stumbled into a mansion-turned-Irish-bar where we spent a couple of hours listening to two elderly British gentlemen sing Motown songs while a lot of elderly people danced along. Eleanor would have loved it.) Also, here's a weird fact: you know how the Beatles all kind of talk the same? It never occurred to me until we got there, but everyone in Liverpool sounds exactly like that. It's uncanny and a little weird to hear Paul McCartney's voice coming out of every cabbie, bartender, and child you meet, but there you have it.

Anyway, the weekend was more about Eleanor Rigby than my Eleanor, so it feels nice to get back into the swing of cooking again. Naturally, after nearly a week without cooking a single meal for ourselves, I dove right back in with a recipe for... 'tasty tuna casserole for two.'

(I know. Why do I do these things to myself? Partly because it sounded like good comfort food and partly because I tend to forget about tuna for about 364 days out of each year, then when I remember it, it's like a weird craving I can't get rid of until I have it.)

Strawberry fields forever, with Judson.

Andrew, me, and John lennon, just hanging out on Mathew street.

This isn't exactly light fare, though according to the newspaper clipping, it only has 331 calories per serving. We had it alone, but you could pair it with a nice rocket salad if you're ravenous. It was the perfect meal for these transitional days, where it's warm during the day and then cold as soon as the sun goes down. Plus, how often do you find a casserole for only two people? This makes an awesome dinner on a night when you're hungry and in a rush, but still want some proper homemade comfort food. Best of all, it's fast and cheap, so have at it! Next time you're stuck in traffic on your way home from a rainy day of work, make this casserole for dinner, then curl up with a book and a blanket and relax your way into a better evening.

The newspaper clipping that this recipe came from recommends serving it with a “marinated bean salad and hot coffee, for a hearty and even elegant dinner.” Unfortunately, it not being the 1970s, I didn't know what a marinated bean salad was, and drinking coffee with this seemed like a bad idea. If you try it that way, let me know, but don't hold me responsible if it's terrible.

The verdict:

3 spoons out of five. It's easy, fast, relatively low-calorie, and cheap... but it's not glamorous and it's not a beautiful meal if you're having guests.

The recipe:

Cheesy Tuna Casserole

THE DIRECTIONS:

Grease the rims of two individual casseroles or ovenproof tureens.
Preheat oven to 176C/350F.
Saute onion in butter until tender but not brown.
Stir in remaining ingredients except cheese.
Bake for 20 minutes until hot through.
Sprinkle cheese onto each casserole and bake 5 minutes longer.

the ingredients:

½ c chopped onion
1 tsp butter
½ can cream of celery soup
2/3 c tuna
3 tsp lemon juice
1 c cooked rice (we used Uncle Ben's microwave rice)
Salt and pepper
1/3 c grated cheddar cheese

Broccoli and Cauliflower Casserole

Every time I gather the ingredients to make a recipe from the box that I think is going to be terrible, I am inevitably surprised when it turns out delicious. (Even the French Pudding, I'm embarrassed to say, was good enough to eat at least one serving.)

But when I assembled the ingredients for “Two Vegetable Casserole,” a recipe from my mom to Eleanor, I was convinced this would be the end of my winning streak. How convinced was I? So much so that I had a frozen pizza stashed in the freezer, just awaiting its turn in the spotlight if I couldn't make this casserole into something edible.

But I should have known: my mom is a pretty awesome cook, and this recipe did not disappoint-- despite the fact that it has a quarter of a cup of mayonnaise in it.* (I credit at least part of her cooking skills to the fact that my brother and I flat refused to eat onions, mayonnaise, or tomatoes until we were well into our teens. We taught her to be creative with her recipes, I guess?)

We love roasted veggies in this house, but it's easy to get stuck in the rut of “toss with olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon juice and roast at an unreasonable temperature for 20 minutes.” So it was nice to give this recipe a try: roast veggies form the base of it, but they're dressed up with a creamy sauce and finished with an unbeatable crunch from the bread crumbs sprinkled over the entire thing. This is vintage food at its finest, but since Judson and I were barely children when casseroles were the ubiquitous solution for dinner, this is a totally new frontier for us and we love it.

I especially love that this recipe really does encompass Eleanor, my mom, and me, all in equal measure... and hey, it might not be the healthiest meal ever, but if you think of it as a low-fat broccoli soup, it's still a win in our book. I guess the moral of this story is that you should always trust your mom's cooking, even when it sounds gross. (Except when she tries to feed you beef stroganoff, because seriously, Mom? Eww.)

The Verdict:

5 spoons out of five. This made the perfect amount to have as a main course with a small salad, plus enough for leftovers the second night... and it was so good, we were actually looking forward to the leftovers. (Pro tip: sprinkle some fresh crumbs over it if you have this for leftovers, and it'll taste even better than the first night!)

*I really hate mayo and I don't see the point of adding the unnecessary fat here. I also ran out in the middle of this recipe, so I used 1 part mayo and 1 part greek yogurt. I think you could easily swap the entirety for greek yogurt (or sour cream) and not miss it, so that's what I listed below. In addition, I bought the veggies for this at our local co-op, so I used fresh instead of frozen, which I recommend. As noted here, I also omitted the final 2 tsp of melted margarine that was supposed to be drizzled over the final product because we found it unnecessary. If you want to do it the real 1970s way, then go for it... but that's on you.

If you're reeeeeally awesome, you'll use asian-style  panko bread crumbs instead of crushed  Ritz crackers, which is, assuredly, what eleanor would have used.

The recipe:

Two Vegetable Casserole

The Ingredients:

1 large head of broccoli (or 2 small ones)
1 medium-sized head of cauliflower
1 can cream of mushroom soup
¼ c greek yogurt
1 c grated extra sharp cheddar cheese
1 egg, beaten
Salt and Pepper
¼ c toasted bread crumbs

THE DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 200C/390F.
Chop broccoli and cauliflower into large-ish bite sized florets.
Put veggies in a roasting pan or casserole dish and drizzle with olive oil, shaking to coat. (It doesn't matter if your veggies are in a single layer-- you basically just want to add the great flavour that roasting imparts without cooking them all the way.)
Roast 10-15 minutes until you start to see brown bits but veggies are still crisp.
Remove from oven and turn temperature down to 176C/350F.
In a separate bowl, combine soup, yogurt, cheese, beaten egg, salt and pepper and blend well.
Pour soup mixure over vegetables and sprinkle evenly with crumbs.
Bake for 20-30 minutes.

Serves 4 as a main course with a side salad, or 6-8 as a side dish.

Sweet & Sour Beef Kebabs

Shish Kebabs, to me, are the quintessential food of the 1970s. More than fondue, more than Watergate Salad, more than stuffed peppers or anything else I can think of, shish kebabs just seem like a 1970s party waiting to happen... and so it makes sense that I found a recipe for “Sweet and Sour Beef Kebabs” in the box without much searching.

I've never made a kebab (fun fact: when I was a kid, I thought I hated all food on sticks just because I happened to hate onions and peppers... and it never occurred to me that I could just eat the other things on the stick and avoid those ones), and I've never seen skewers in the store here in Scotland. This is the weird thing about living in a different country that I don't think people always understand: we've been here a year and a half, but, at least twice a month there is still something we need to buy or do that we can't figure out how to purchase or accomplish. For instance: bamboo skewers are readily available at every grocery store in the US that I've ever been to, and even more readily available at every Wal-Mart and Target. But here in Edinburgh, the grocery stores are much smaller (ours doesn't carry pie filling, gelatin, or marshmallows), so I knew getting skewers there would be a non-starter. So I headed down to a hardware store in our neighbourhood-- the same place I bought our kitchen scale, copper cleaner for our pots, soda crystals to clean our washing machine, and a whole lot of other random gadgets that no one else in town carries. Most of the times I've been there looking for a really specific thing, they've looked at me like I was crazy, but this time they came to the rescue and I am now the owner of a large bag of (very small) bamboo skewers and a set of 4 (even smaller) metal ones.

Dat maple syrup tho.

I like to imagine Eleanor smoking a cigarette, wearing a polyester dress with a loud psychedelic pattern, and mixing up a pitcher of lemonade while my grandpa Wilbur grilled up these kebabs in their backyard, but I can hear Eleanor's voice in my head, even as I type this, reminding me that it's too hot to grill outside for 90% of the year in Florida, so maybe I'm wrong about that one.

We don't have a grill here in Edinburgh (it's pretty much the only thing I miss from our house in Atlanta), so I had to make these in the kitchen... though I might bust this recipe out when it gets a little warmer: we live across the street from the largest park in Edinburgh and in the summer it's full of groups of people grilling out on tiny disposable grills they sell at all the grocery stores. This is an easy, tasty recipe that is intended as an appetiser, but we ate it as a main course one night for dinner and I REGRET NOTHING.

Some words of advice: the cut of the meat actually does matter on this one, despite the fact that it's marinated for ages in a briny mix. I accidentally bought “stew meat” the first time and it was noticeably, terribly tough. Get yourself some sirloin and you won't regret it. Also, the longer this marinates, the better-- if you can get it into the marinade in the morning, it'll be totally worth it when dinner rolls around, I promise. Any kind of onion should work, but the sweeter, the better-- if you have Vidalias, use them here! And finally: these kebabs don't reheat particularly well, so aim to make as close to the actual amount that you need as possible.

And special thanks today go to my mom, who sent this bottle of maple syrup to us as an anniversary gift because it's so hard to find over here. We think of you each Saturday when we eat crepes.

The Verdict:

4 spoons out of five. They're delicious, easy, and seriously, they come on a stick. Does it get any better?

The Recipe:

Sweet and Sour Beef Shish Kebabs

The Ingredients:

1 ½ lb boneless sirloin, cut into ¾-inch cubes
½ c soy sauce
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp scallions, spring onions, or chives
½ tsp garlic powder
2 large sweet onions, cut in chunks
Skewers

THE DIRECTIONS:

Place beef cubes in a large bowl.
Pour in other ingredients, stir well to coat.
Cover and place in refrigerator at least one hour or up to all day.
Remove cubes from marinade and thread on skewers, alternating as desired with onion chunks.
Broil or grill for 5 minutes or until browned on all sides but still pink inside.
rrange on platter and serve as hors d'oeuvres, or have them as a main course with a giant green salad, like we did.