FISH ON FRIDAY: The Tuna Casserole Project

This tuna casserole recipe makes use of one of my favorite small kitchen appliances: the slow-cooker. I read the recipe, bewildered, wondering what it was about tuna casserole that would need four to six hours to cook. I mean, noodles? Maybe eleven minutes in boiling water. The peas, even frozen ones, cook by themselves while the casserole is in the oven. The tuna itself is already cooked -- I got a sudden mental image of a Midwestern housewife cramming an entire raw tuna, head, fins and all, into her Crock Pot -- and couldn't come up with anything. And then, a moment of revelation: The purpose of cooking a tuna casserole in a slow-cooker is twofold:

1) To make absolutely, positively CERTAIN WITHOUT A SHADOW OF DOUBT that all ingredients have reached their maximum level of gluey gloppiness so that each individual helping separates itself from the serving spoon with a sticky sound and lands with a sound that falls somewhere between a *thwack!* and a *thmp* on the plate, and;

2) To make your house smell, like, REALLY, REALLY GOOD. I mean, awesome, with that canned tuna fishy smell permeating every porous surface. Mmmmm....

FISH ON FRIDAY: The Tuna Casserole Project

This week's revolting casserole might as well have saved the money on that flat-leaf parsley garnish because did you ever see the likes of a plate of linguini covered with TUNA GRAVY? No, I thought not. You want the recipe? I'm not going to help you with a link because, really, you need to think this over before you click, for about six or seven months at least. Google "Tuna Gravy" and you'll find a number of recipes at Cooks.com, one that will even allow you to add "canned peas (optional)."

I just called my husband over to take a peek at the image and he peered at it, frowned, looked a little closer and then said in an offended voice, "Why would you make me look at something like that?"

Because misery loves company, baby.

FISH ON FRIDAY: The Tuna Casserole Project

Here is this week's offering, shown to you because? At your Catholic high school? The cafeteria ladies hate you.

FISH ON FRIDAY: The Tuna Casserole Project

Today is the start of a new bit on InsomniMom that I'm calling the Tuna Casserole Project.* Just for some lighthearted fun, you know? Unless you're one of the four people in North America who really likes tuna casserole, and I have to confess that if you are, I just don't know what to do with you. Stage an intervention? Write to the archdiocese for the name and number of the nearest exorcist? Weep sorrowful tears over a can of BumbleBee? All three? I'm stuck.

Anyway, tuna casserole is funny. People have such BIG reactions to it. You hardly ever hear someone say indifferently, "Tuna casserole? Yeah, my mom used to make that. I didn't much care for it." No, with tuna casserole you get reactions like a belligerent, "DO NOT EVER SPEAK THOSE TWO WORDS TO ME AGAIN" or perhaps a quivering voice whispering, "Sometimes when I have a fever, I can still smell that smell....that terrible, terrible smell...." accompanied by hand-wringing and a facial tic.

This Friday's offering is one that I named "Vomit on a Plate." I took a quick, holding-breath peek at the recipe and while it doesn't actually call for vomit, it does call for canned cream of mushroom soup and a great many peas and a generous amount of overcooked elbow macaroni. Plus the tuna, of course. By themselves, those things don't look vomity -- well, canned cream of mushroom soup isn't really what I'd call beautiful or anything, but still... -- but mixed all together and baked in a dish? It comes out looking like this and I'm not sure how you could get it onto your fork, let alone near your mouth. Totally yucktastic.




*These are images from the internet that have been deliberately posted by the people who made these casseroles. Yes, there are actual RECIPES for these things out there, but I'm not going to post them or even link to them because first of all, you don't really want to make something that looks like that, do you? And second of all, if you did make something that looked like that, let alone posted a recipe for it on the internet and served it to your family? Would YOU want to be outed? I think not.