Tag Archives: salmon noodle casserole

Good Food Does Not Have To Be Snooty Food

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This is a re-run of a recipe I posted a year or so ago. Here in Malawi, I can’t quite get all the ingredients for it. So if it appeals to you, maybe you can make it and enjoy it for me.

The spirit behind this recipe is this: that in eating, we don’t have to choose between organic whole-grain everything and mac-n-cheese in a box; nor do we have to choose between comforting-but-totally-from-cans casseroles and fancy-pants cuisine. This casserole holds its head up high. It’s real food. It’s real comfort. It’s delicious.

(a note on the potato chips: if you want to be super fancy, you can make your own. Elise Bauer’s recipe at Simply Recipes comes out quite well. If not, try to choose a brand that’s just potatoes, oil, and salt—preferably lightly salted.)

Salmon Noodle Casserole

Preheat oven to 400F. Set a large pot of salted water to boil for the egg noodles, and a smaller pot of salted water to boil for the broccoli.

In a saucepan over medium-high heat, dry saute 8 ounces fresh, cleaned, mushrooms, broken into pieces.

Continue to stir them for 10 minutes or so, or until they have given up much of their moisture. Add 1 medium onion, minced finely, and just enough butter to keep it from sticking. Cook another 10 minutes or so until onions are just short of browning. Remove from pan and set aside.

In same saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons butter, stir in 2 tablespoons flour and blend well over low heat until just short of browning. Whisking constantly, pour in 1 cup half and half. Continue to whisk and bring to just short of the boiling point, add onion and mushroom mixture, salt and pepper to taste, 1/3 cup milk and set aside.

Meanwhile, blanch and cool 1/2 lb (2 cups) of fresh broccoli. (ie. throw it in some boiling salted water for 1 minute, then drain and run under cool water; set aside.)

I think these noodles are the best ones.

Cook 12 ounces extra-wide whole-egg noodles for three minutes less than the shortest time suggested on the package, drain, rinse thoroughly with cool water.

Mix cooked noodles, sauce, and broccoli with 2 cups grated mild cheddar or jack cheese and 2 cans wild-caught salmon* (drained) and spread in shallow buttered ovenproof pan, sprinkle with 1 cup crushed high-quality potato chips.

(Yes, I realize that potato chips are not “healthy,” whatever that is. You can leave them out if you want, but don’t blame me if your casserole doesn’t attract the adulation you desire.)

Bake 20-25 minutes.

Noodle Casserole That Makes People Want to Marry You

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Some friends and I were discussing some article I skimmed and promptly forgot everything about, including the site I read it on, except this: that a man wanted to divorce his wife because her tuna noodle casserole was so gross and she served it so often.

I’ll have to check with my resident geeks (ie. my husband, Tim, and my dad, Tom) but I think the Talmud actually does provide some legitimation for these grounds for divorce–there’s a kind of “if she burns the bread” clause.

But anyway, I said to my friends, I don’t want to brag, but my noodle casserole makes people want to marry me.

(Don’t want to brag? Whatever. Of course I want to brag! This stuff is good! )

And so one friend asked for the recipe, and here it is, as promised.

Salmon Noodle Casserole

Preheat oven to 400F. Set a large pot of salted water to boil for the egg noodles, and a smaller pot of salted water to boil for the broccoli.

In a saucepan over medium-high heat, dry saute 8 ounces fresh, cleaned, mushrooms, broken into pieces.

Continue to stir them for 10 minutes or so, or until they have given up much of their moisture. Add 1 medium onion, minced finely, and just enough butter to keep it from sticking. Cook another 10 minutes or so until onions are just short of browning. Remove from pan and set aside.

In same saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons butter, stir in 2 tablespoons flour and blend well over low heat until just short of browning. Whisking constantly, pour in 1 cup half and half. Continue to whisk and bring to just short of the boiling point, add onion and mushroom mixture, salt and pepper to taste, 1/3 cup milk and set aside.

Meanwhile, blanch and cool 1/2 lb (2 cups) of fresh broccoli. (ie. throw it in some boiling salted water for 1 minute, then drain and run under cool water; set aside.)

I think these noodles are the best ones.

Cook 12 ounces extra-wide whole-egg noodles for three minutes less than the shortest time suggested on the package, drain, rinse thoroughly with cool water.

Mix cooked noodles, sauce, and broccoli with 2 cups grated mild cheddar or jack cheese and 2 cans wild-caught salmon* (drained) and spread in shallow buttered ovenproof pan, sprinkle with 1 cup crushed high-quality potato chips.

(Yes, I realize that potato chips are not “healthy,” whatever that is. You can leave them out if you want, but don’t blame me if your casserole doesn’t attract the adulation you desire.)

These potato chips (local for me!) are the BEST!

Bake 20-25 minutes.

*you can skip the salmon to make it vegetarian, but why not support the lovely Leslie Leyland Fields‘ other job, too? ;)

Comfort the Afflicted

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So my friend Mr. S–who is in his nineties–is in a great deal of pain. He has been in pain for most of his life, in fact, because he fought in the Pacific during WW2 and received a wound that has remained open, painful, and constantly infected ever since. But now he’s got some kind of affliction (cancer, maybe?) on his face and he is almost completely blind. When I saw him on Saturday night, he was in so much pain that he would pause, close his eyes, and be silent for a moment before continuing to speak.

this has very little to do with the post except that my son’s dinosaur/dragon drawings really do make the kitchen a happier place to cook and blog!

He’s never been a complainer. Not ever. Maybe that comes from being an old-fashioned Yankee; maybe from being part of the Greatest Generation; maybe that’s just who he is (and maybe some of each.) But lately, he has been more willing to admit that he is in pain. He has even mentioned some of his war experiences–something I’ve never known him to do. He feels very alone and forgotten. (Mrs. S is there, of course, but staying in a nursing home can still be pretty depressing and lonely)

Bringing dinner on Saturday nights, then, feels like much too little. It can’t take away the pain. In fact, he’s in such pain that he can’t manage to eat much anyway.

We keep going, of course. With food. Because even if he gets down just a few bites, it’s a few bites of something that tastes good and, hopefully, brings just a bit of comfort.

(I should add that Mrs. S has no problem enjoying her food. She eats quietly, deliberately, and heartily.)

This week, I was going to make a variation on the Tuna Noodle Casserole in the Fannie Farmer Cookbook (11th. ed.), substituting canned wild Alaskan salmon for the tuna. However, I forgot to put the salmon in, so it was simply Noodle Casserole. It was, if I may say so, quite good. But it wasn’t much like the recipe in the book. (I’ll share it soon. Spoiler: is topped with crushed potato chips, which you leave off at your peril.) Mrs. S. loved it. Mr. S. took only a few bites, but pronounced them ‘good.’

these are LOCAL potato chips! makes them healthier; I’m convinced of it. Oh! And another delightful monster drawing.
can’t believe I forgot the salmon. my mom wisely pointed out that having salmon in might’ve filled us up too much and cut into our appetite for chocolate mousse.

fresh mint and “french dressing” (a vinaigrette)

I wanted to start the meal with some kind of salad that would be seasonal and easy to eat, so I pulled a few beets from the ground, plucked some fresh mint and made a beet and mint salad with vinaigrette. (I don’t even like beets that much–except for beet cake, of course–but this was good, too.) To my surprise, Mr. S. ate almost all of his. Beets can be comfort food! Who knew?

beets are such a great color.

Of course, I had to make something chocolate for dessert because Mr. S. loves chocolate and because a creamy noodle casserole just calls for some kind of chocolate pudding as a finishing course. So we had a French chocolate mousse, made with the help of my beautiful new Kitchen Aid mixer that my mom got me for my birthday. Oh, yum. I made it with Dutch-process cocoa, sugar, butter, brandy, and eggs. (Mr. S. ate a good bit of this. Mrs. S., who is very quiet, gave a hearty “yum!” after her first bite and scraped the dish clean.)

I love this kind of cooking: it’s comfort food–soft, easy to swallow, creamy–from real ingredients. And when you’re cooking for old people and sick people, what can sometimes be comes a liability when cooking for others (for example, lots of cream and butter) is actually an advantage (calorically-dense foods are often just what sick folks with poor appetites need.) I love cooking for my old friends.

I’ve known some kids whose doctors prescribed that they drink this stuff straight. I have to use coffee as an excuse to drink it myself. #loveheavycream

I don’t kid myself that this food is going to work any miracles. Sometimes, for Mr. S., at least, hunger for food is obviously a distant second to hunger for company. This past week, I was pretty sure he would’ve preferred a dish of pain meds to the dinner I brought.

But maybe the comfort is not just in the food. Maybe it’s in the fact that with the food I bring hot, black coffee–his favorite–into a nursing home where the coffee is weak and tepid. Maybe it’s the way my mom insists on helping him cut his food and tells him that he’s not allowed to argue about it. Maybe it’s that we bring cloth placemats and real china and make a big fuss over them in a place which provides quality care but no extra touches.

Maybe we can’t eliminate pain in this broken, hurting world. Actually, I’m sure we can’t. But maybe we can offer each other comfort–the temporal comforts of hugs, puddings, hot drinks–that points to an even greater Comfort–the hope of One who shared our brokenness to the point of allowing himself to be broken, but rose again, securing our healing and wholeness and that of this whole broken world.