When I was in college and sometimes hung out with graduate student history majors, some weekends we would get together, chip in 60 cents each, and someone would make tuna and noodle casserole. I wasn't into cooking then, but I always enjoyed the cheap dinner. Guess what?
It's still cheap. I use good quality Italian tuna in olive oil ($1.99 each) and good quality egg noodles, from Ocean State Job lot, so they're really cheap. I make my own white sauce, and always saute a bit of onion and (green, red, yellow, whatever) pepper first. Put in a dab of cayenne powder. Use part of the oil drained from the tuna as "shortening." Use whatever dairy product (milk, cream, half and half) is available. I use 2 6.5 oz. cans of tuna. We like it with crushed potato chips on top. Breadcrumbs would be good, too, but not as good as potato chips.
A casserole from these ingredients made 3 weekdays dinners for two. Can't get much cheaper than that. It tasted great, too. I dumped in about 3/4 finely chopped broccoli that was leftover from something. Frozen peas will also work. Some color, don'tcha know.
Tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo, and we're celebrating in the kitchen, which is the best place. I'm splurging for some Chicken Tostadas. See the next post.
Ole!
