How to Not Make Tuna Casserole

This one goes out to Gina.

I spent all day in the kitchen. I mean, from nine in the morning until 2.45 in the afternoon, I was cooking. Baking, to be specific. There’s a lot going on this weekend, and I have to bake for almost all of it. It’s fine. I’ve got it under control. However, the question of what to make for dinner was nagging at me, because I knew that even though I was going to be getting a Peapod delivery between four and six this afternoon, it was all very unclear how exactly I would put together a decent evening meal. I mean, obviously, I’d cook something, but — what?

The problem was simmering away in the back of my mind when I remembered that I was going to be receiving some cans of tuna, and I remembered a) the bags of frozen peas in the freezer b) the few ounces of leftover roasted red peppers I have in the fridge and c) the block of Colby-Jack cheese I also had in the fridge. “So long as I’ve got some egg noodles, I can make a tuna casserole,” I told myself around noon today, and feeling very smug I slogged on through the baking, along the way confirming my suspicion that I did in fact have egg noodles on hand.

At five o’clock this evening, the groceries all unloaded and put away, I put a pot of water on to boil and began to hotten up (as they say) some butter in a pot. I set the oven to pre-heat (375° or so). I sauteed some chopped onion in the butter, threw in the diced red peppers, and worked on making the bechamel. Flour; milk; looking good. I was feeling quite on top of things. I cooked the egg noodles, threw the peas in three minutes before the noodles were done so they could all drain together. Gina would have been proud. Scanning for cheese in the fridge I decided to not only put in the Colby-Jack, but also the last of a tub of powdered cheese I had from King Arthur Flour. It wasn’t enough to do much else with — maybe a teaspoon and a half of powdered cheese — but it wouldn’t hurt the sauce, I figured, so I dumped it in and stirred and stirred and stirred. “Gotta remember to not forget the tuna,” I said to myself as I stirred the sauce. I turned the heat down and went to drain the noodles and peas.

My husband came home from work. “How are you?” I called to the front hall.

“Tired. Hungry,” came the response.
“Tuna noona coming up soonish,” I said. He said nothing, but came into the kitchen.
“Mmmm,” he said, staring over my shoulder. “Bechamel. Casserole?”
“I said I’m making tuna noona,” I said.
“I didn’t hear you,” he said. He poured himself a drink and stood against the kitchen counter. We got to talking about the differences between Catholic churches and Episcopalian churches. “Hey,” I said, “Can you help me spoon this sauce onto the noodles? The pot’s kind of heavy.”

“Boy, this looks great,” my husband said as he took charge of the pot. The noodles and peas were spread out in a greased baking pan, and the sauce covered them beautifully. I sprinkled the top with bread crumbs and Parmesan and put the pan into the oven. “All right,” I said. “Probably fifteen minutes, we should be ready to eat.”

“Cool,” my husband said, settling himself on the couch. I went upstairs to take care of mundane matters there, and it was after I’d spent ten mundane minutes upstairs that I gasped: I’d forgotten to put the tuna into the tuna casserole.

I ran downstairs. “I forgot to put the tuna in!” I wailed.

So this is how you make a Not Tuna Casserole: you do everything you’d do if you were making a tuna casserole, and then leave out the tuna.

There was a pause, and then my husband began to guffaw.

“What am I gonna do?” I asked. It really wasn’t clear to me that there was any fixing the problem; you can’t undo the casserole once it’s been in the oven ten minutes. To stir in the tuna then would mean ruining the topping.

“Just flake the tuna in when you’re serving it,” my husband suggested reasonably.

“I can’t believe I forgot the tuna,” I said. “We got to talking, and I was making the sauce, and it looked good, but I was distracted, and I forgot the tuna.”

Just then my daughter came in from the courtyard, where she’d been playing. “You forgot the tuna? So what’s in the casserole?”

“Everything but the tuna,” I said.

In the end, we mixed the drained, flaked tuna, straight from the can, into the piles of sauced noodles on our plates, and all of us were perfectly happy. Some of us even had thirds. There’s almost none leftover.

So that’s how you make a successful not tuna casserole: proceed as for tuna casserole, but leave out the tuna. Enjoy.