Pretzel Topped Tuna Casserole

It's week three of vintage month and it's about time I made a casserole. Tuna Casserole has alway been a weird dish, I mean hot tuna? You could not have made me eat this when I was younger, but the first time I tried tuna casserole I was shocked at how good it was! For a dish that has been reduced to pre-made mixes in the grocery store, tuna casserole can impress when made from scratch. It's surprisingly easy to make! I used pretzels to top mine because I always have to be a little different. Go ahead and make this easy to prepare meal, it's sort of healthy!

Pretzel Topped Tuna Casserole

• 2 cans of premium Tuna
• 1/2 cup of Frozen Peas
• 2 cups of Egg Noodles
• 1 1/2 cups Milk
• 2 cups Chicken Broth
• 1 Small Yellow Onion diced
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• 3 tablespoons Flour
• 8 Large Pretzels coarsely crushed
• 1/4 cup Parmesan finely grated
• Salt and Pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400°.
2. In a large sauce pan heat the olive oil and onion over medium high heat. Stirring on occasion until slightly colored. Add the flour and stir. Cook until the flour coating on the onion turns slightly brown. Some will have stuck to the bottom of the pan that's okay. 
3. Deglaze the pan by adding the milk and chicken broth. Stir and bring to a boil.
4. While you're waiting for the mixture to come to a boil start making the topping. Crush the pretzels with your fingers into a small bowl. Stir in the grated parmesan.
5. Once the mixture has come to a boil add the tuna, peas, noodles, salt and pepper.
6. Cook for about 7 minutes or until the noodles become soft.
7. Scoop the noodles and stuff into the baking vessel of your choice. I chose to use ramekins cause it adds a bit of classy, and this way you don't end up eating the whole pan by yourself. Top with the pretzel parm mix and bake until the cheese has melted. I garnished mine with some pea shoots!
8. Enjoy!

Photos by Katy Weaver

Beef Stroganoff with Gorgonzola Gnocchis

Before we get into this post I just want to mention that we have a holiday ecookbook on Google Play! Which can be downloaded by clicking here, here or here. Or you can click on that ad to the right. It's a good way to support your favorite food bloggers!

This is our first post in a series entitled: Foods with Weird Names.  Sure Beef Stroganoff seems like an outdated dish, but adding the Gorgonzola Gnocchis turns this into a new modern classic. This is a perfect example of taking something from the past and making it fit today's tastes. It's not as hard as people make it out to be. 

Side note: I want to lick that steak. 

Beef Stroganoff

• 1 lb. Top Sirloin Steak sliced into strips about 1/4" thick.
• 6 Mushrooms baby cremini--sliced 
• 1/2 medium Red Onion minced 
• 2 tablespoons Butter
• 1 clove Garlic minced 
• 1/4 cup Wine (Pinot Noir) 
• 3/4 cup Sour Cream
• 1 tablespoon Crushed Mustard Seeds
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Chives finely chopped

1. Melt the butter in a large skillet. Add the garlic and onions. Caramelize until caramel in color. 
2. Add the sliced mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper, sauté for about 3-5 minutes.  
3. Introduce the steak into the mix at this point. Sauté only until the steak turns slightly brown.
4. Stir in the wine and sour cream. Bring to a boil then reduce to a low simmer. Stirring occasionally let the sauce thicken up before serving. 

Gorgonzola Gnocchis

• 2 Potatoes boiled and mashed
• 1 tablespoon Butter
• 1 cup Flour (plus extra if needed) 
• 2 Eggs
• 4 oz. Gorgonzola crumbled

1. In a large bowl mix the mashed potatoes in with the butter and 1/4 cup of the flour.
2. Mix in the eggs and the rest of flour.
3. Sprinkle the gorgonzola into the mixture. Fold the cheese into the batter. Add more flour as needed. It should be the consistency of slightly tacky bread dough.
4. Transfer the dough into a ziplock bag. 
5. Heat several cups of cold water to a boil in a saucepan over high heat. 
6. Cut the tip off the ziplock bag, that's right - just the tip. Squeeze over the boiling pan while cutting the dough into tootsie roll sized pieces. 
7. Boil until each gnocchi floats in the pan.
8. Drain the water and serve with Beef Stroganoff on top. Garnish with chives. 

Photos as always by Katy Weaver (you probably know that by now)

Lemon Bacon Shrimp Pasta with Chard

What to make for dinner? We've all found ourselves asking ourselves this question while only having the kitchen only be filled with leftover ingredients of meals past. That's exactly what happened with this dish. It was born out of hunger and the impatience of waiting for a pie to finish baking. Why, yes the pie is indeed going to be the next post. 

Everyone has that one food they can not stand, for me it's brussels sprouts, I know it's a bit cliché, but I don't even like them enough to find a recipe that makes them taste good enough to choke them down. A certain photographer's least favorite food, as weird as it sounds, is bacon, since we basically only had bacon, shrimp, and chard in the fridge, I tried concocting a dish that would hopefully appeal to the both of us.  Not to spoil the end result, but a dual appealing dish was not the result. 

I've thought about it and I'm not going to post the actual recipe on here, because it was sort of a throw a bunch of stuff in a pan and see how it turns out kind of dish. I will tell you what's actually in it, because I'm that nice. Even with just the listed ingredients you should be able to recreate it or creative something simliar of your own.

Lemon Bacon Shrimp Pasta with Chard

• Shrimp (16/20 size)
• Jowl bacon cut into tiny strips
• Lemon juice and zest
• Onion chopped
• Garlic minced
• White wine
• Angel hair pasta
• Chard chopped
• Basil out of jar (I know I'm ashamed of me too, but it was the only basil we had in the kitchen)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Goat cheese

Serves 4 small portions

Sometimes not using a recipe can be liberating, being able to free yourself from the shackles of Betty Crocker. Take this post as a challenge for the inner culinary explorer within you. See if you can take the inspiration and make it your own with what you have and hopefully make a dish that everyone will enjoy!

Photos by a non-bacon loving Katy Weaver

Pasta Salad

I've noticed a theme to my lunches the past couple of days; they were last night's dinner at one point and after sitting in their own sauces overnight they become even more delicious. I wasn't planning on posting this recipe, but it turned out way better than what I was expecting. Also, the lovely Katy Weaver took flawless pictures of  this dish.

The recipe for the initial dinner dish is a bit loose in structure. I'm not one for exact measurements especially in a dish like this, but I'll write out what I put into it and how to make it.

Spaghetti with Vegetables Cooked in White Wine 

Servings: 2 plus leftovers to make 2 servings of pasta salad

Things you'll need:

• a quarter sized fist full of whole grain spaghetti
• half of 1 large yellow onion chopped into medium sized pieces
• 2 cloves of garlic minced
• olive oil
• about 6 small whole mushrooms sliced
• 1 handfull of frozen spinach (or about half a block)
• Half of 1 large zucchini sliced and then cut into fourths
• 1 handfull of grape tomatoes halfed
• 1/4 cup chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 bottle of dry white wine (only 1/2 cup is needed for this recipe, so you can just drink whatever is left)

1. Pour about 2 tablespoons of the olive oil  into a skillet and then add the onion and garlic. Let the onions and garlic caramelize. Once the onions are golden brown and garlic is brown, but not burnt add the mushrooms. After the mushrooms have soaked up most of the oil add half of the stock and 1/4 cup of the wine. 
2. This would be a good time to start cooking the spaghetti. You know how to make spaghetti, right? Boil water. Put the pasta into the boiling water. Taste a piece to make sure it's done. Drain the pasta. Set aside until the vegetables are finished.
3. Once the mushrooms have soaked up all the liquid remove the onion and mushroom mix and place it into a bowl and set aside. Then place the zucchini into the skillet. Add the frozen spinach.  Stir and cook until the spinach is fully defrosted and isn't in a giant block any more. Then add the tomatoes and the mushroom and onion mix. Stir until everything looks mixed together. 
4. Add the cooked pasta to the vegetable mixture as well as the rest of the wine (should be about 1/3 cup) and the rest of the stock. Mix everything. Let the sauce cook down. You can serve it up hot and top it off with some parmasen or feta if you like or you can take all of it and put it into an air tight container and let it sit in the fridge until it's cooled down enough to make some pasta salad.

The good news is that you're done with the hard part. The bad news is that if you want to make the pasta salad you're going to have to wait until it cools down in the fridge. 

The Best Pasta Salad You've Ever Had*

You've already done the hard part. Things you'll need:

• Leftover cold pasta from the recipe above
• Kalamata Olives sliced (about 3 olives per serving)
• Feta crumbled over the top (about 2 tablespoons per serving)
• Olive oil
• Balsamic vinegar
• Arugula (about 1/2 per serving)

1. Add the sliced olives into the cold pasta.
2. Place the arugula into the bowls you're serving the salad in.
3. Scoop the pasta on top of the bed of arugula.
4. Top with feta Cheese and drizzle olive oil and balsamic vinegar over the salad.
5. Enjoy!

You could easily add the arugula and feta into the pasta salad itself if you're making this for a large group of people for a picnic or a party. 

*probably. Who knows? This might be the third best pasta salad you've ever had.