Tuesday's Dinner: Tuna Noodle Casserole

Tuna Noodle Casserole has got to be a classic comfort food. Creamy, noodley goodness in a hot pan, no side dish needed. While away from home I wanted meals that would be simple to prepare (requiring few ingredients), yet were tasty and had enough redeeming nutrional value to keep us all well fed for the week.

This meal was great for another reason. I was able to bring several of the ingredients from home (tuna and whole grain noodles), so 2 less things to buy. Not only that but instead of buying an entire bag of overpriced potato chips for the topping, improvisation led me to substitute some cheesy crackers we brought with us for the topping. Not bad!

All the ingredients, assembled and ready to go:


Just a note here on the above ingredients: at home I would typically substitute homemade white sauce, as I talked about here.
The original recipe is here, but I added a half a bag of frozen peas, used half mozarella half sharp cheddar and lots of onion as well as salt/pepper to taste. Oh and 1 cup milk rather than the condensed milk called for.

All the ingredients in the greased casserole dish, sans topping:


With the cracker topping:


This fresh-out-of-the-oven picture didn't turn out very well, but you get the idea. For lunch the next day (and there were plenty of leftovers!) we added more milk, cheese and peas to freshen it up a bit and it was really good.