Dinner Tonight: A Riff on Retro Favorites
Inspiration for tonight's dinner : 1950s-style Modern Food for the Busy Mother. No can-opener needed. A brightened up panko-topped Tuna Noodle Casserole and a bacon-bespeckled Napa Cabbage Salad. Just the right mix of vice and virtue.
We've included a sort of meal-making plan of action below, but click on the photos or links to find the fully-fleshed out recipes. A delicious supper in, oh, about an hour -- eat up!
Browse food52's vast recipe collection sourced from all of the talented home cooks who contribute everyday at food52.com where you'll find lots of lovely casseroles and salads, among mountains of other brilliant ideas for dinner tonight!
The Menu
Tuna Noodle Casserole - Redux by fiveandspice
Serves 4
5 1/2 tablespoons butter, divided
1 cup sliced shiitake mushrooms
1 cup diced portobello mushrooms
1 small yellow onion, diced
1 shallot, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1/2 tablespoon fresh rosemary, minced
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, minced
1 tablespoon minced chives
1/4 cup dry sherry
1/4 cup flour
1 cup milk (whole)
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 cans oil packed tuna, drained
8 ounces egg noodles, cooked until al dente and drained
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup panko
1. Preheat your oven to 350F. In a large sautee pan, heat 1 Tbs. of butter over medium-high until foaming. Stir in mushrooms and cook until mushrooms have given off all of their liquid and cooked through (10 or so minutes). Season lightly with salt and pepper, transfer to a bowl and set aside.
2. Add another 1/2 Tbs. butter to the frying pan, then cook onion, shallot and celery together for about 5 minutes, until softened. Stir in the chopped herbs and the sherry and cook for another 2 minutes. Stir the mushrooms into this mixture, then set this aside.
3. In a saucepan, heat 3 Tbs. of butter over medium-high until foaming. Stir in the flour to make a roux and cook for about 2 minutes. Then whisk in the milk and chicken stock, bit by bit, to make a smooth sauce. Cook, stirring, until just slightly thickened (another minute or two). Then add the lemon zest and season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. Flake the tuna and combine the tuna, the white sauce, the mushroom-onion mixture, and the noodles all together. Grease and 8X8 inch baking pan and transfer the casserole mixture into it.
5. In a small pan, melt the last Tbs. of butter. Stir in the minced garlic and the panko breadcrumbs and cook, stirring, until the panko is golden brown. Sprinkle this all over the casserole. Put the casserole in the oven and bake until it is bubbly, about 30 minutes. Serve! (And if you are in a church basement, you might have to throw together a reduxed jello salad as well!)
click here to save and print this recipe
Helen Getz's Napa Cabbage with Hot Bacon Dressing
click here to get this recipe
The Grocery List
1 napa cabbage
8 ounces bacon
2 cups of mushrooms (fiveandspice suggests half shitake and half portobellos)
1/2 teaspoon fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
1 tablespoon fresh chives
2 cans oil-packed tuna
8 ounces egg noodles
We're guessing you've already got butter, flour, lemon, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, an egg, garlic, bread crumbs and chicken stock in your refridgerator and pantry because we know you're a well-stocked pantry kind of person, we can just tell. If not, well -- add them to the list!
The Plan
1. The beauty of a casserole is the time window you're allotted after all the prep work is done, because that's really all this casserole is. Focus on assembling the tuna dish first, it's completely managable on a busy weeknight, but it's not quite as fast as the canned-soup version of yore. You don't even need to think about the salad until the casserole is baking.
2. Is the casserole bubbling away happily in the oven? Okay, now is the perfect moment start browning your bacon and thinking about salad.
3. Give the salad a toss, pull that casserole out to cool and announce the readiness of your feast!
4. Hankering for a little dessert? How about a rice-krispie-and-white-chocolate snowflake? Easy peasy lemon squeezy, and what could be more retro than a riff on Rice Krispies. Mom would definitely approve.
Tip : Pack up what's left of that casserole into a good strong tupperware and freeze it for another night when you just don't feel like cooking. You deserve a night off here and there.
Save and print this recipe (and see what others are saying about it) on FOOD52.
Get answers to your burning food questions on the go with our new (free!) FOOD52 Hotline iPhone app.
