I spend most of my day on Skype with my college buddy/direct supervisor, Andy. Andy is a Cashew – which is to say that he is half-Catholic and half-Jewish. Naturally, we spend a lot of our time talking about food.

Food, The Great Unifier

Because we both work from home, Andy and I can easily spend a lot of our spare time contemplating what delicacies we are going to shove in our faces. (Yes, I understand that I come from “a place of privilege” on this issue.) As an added bonus, Andy lives with his parents, so he gets to eat tons of delicious Jewish things like Brisket and Kugel and everything else.

Meanwhile, Andy contends that most of the traditional things that my people eat look like prison food.

You know what? He’s absolutely correct.

Tuna Noodle Casserole: Looks like Prison Food, Tastes like my Childhood

If you grew up in a household that didn’t eat tuna noodle casserole on a regular basis, you can either consider yourself very lucky or incredibly deprived – take your pick. However, I love tuna noodle casserole, so I’m going to show you how I make it. (Because that’s what bloggers do.)

Ingredients:

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  • 3 cans of tuna
  • 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup
  • 1/2 box of pasta
  • 1/2 bag of frozen peas
  • 1 pint mushrooms
  • Worcestershire sauce

Once you have your ingredients assembled, it’s a fairly simple process. All you need to do is boil your noodles and mix all the other stuff together in a bowl.

003If it looks like prison food, you’re doing it right!

Then, mix the gloop in with the cooked pasta and smooth it all into a casserole dish. Pro-Tip: use some of the pasta water to thin out the soup if you’re having issues getting even coverage.

008I baked mine at 350 for 60 minutes, which is just enough time to heat/coagulate everything through. Normally, I would just “call it good” right then and there, but my husband informed me that his mother always used to put bread crumbs on top of hers. Never one to doubt my mother-in-law, I followed suit.

009Another Pro-Tip: mix the bread crumbs with melted butter. Because no one wants to eat unbuttered bread crumbs.

Seriously though, I don’t know why people hate tuna noodle casserole so much. It’s fun to say! It’s cheap to make! It fulfills your Lenten Abstention requirements! Plus, every time I eat tuna noodle casserole, I think warm thoughts about my childhood.

So here’s an interesting thought: if tuna noodle casserole is Catholic prison food that reminds me of my childhood, does that mean that my childhood was, in fact, a prison?

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