Makeover Husband’s Dinner Delight — The First College-Sunday

Aunt Linda’s wedding is October fifth, three weeks from this Sunday. I will be flying home from Nashville to Tulsa Friday afternoon after my last class of the week, picked up at the airport by Mama and Cody, weekend at home for rehearsal Friday night and the wedding Saturday and the brunch Sunday morning, and then flying back to Nashville Sunday evening for class Monday. Aunt Linda has been texting me about the bridesmaid logistics every other day — the dress alterations are done, my shoes are at her house, the bouquet has been ordered, the rehearsal-dinner restaurant has been booked. Linda is in pre-wedding-planning mode in the way only a forty-five-year-old first-time bride can be: detail-obsessed, calm-on-the-surface, slightly manic underneath. I love her in this mode.

Mama has been calling me Tuesday and Thursday evenings, twenty-minute check-in calls, the kind of mother-daughter calls we never had when I lived at home because we lived in the same house. The calls have a rhythm of their own that’s completely different from how Mama and I used to talk in person. On the phone she asks specific questions and waits for the answer. In person she would have read the answer off my face before I’d finished thinking about it. The phone forces both of us to use words. The calls are the new shape of the relationship and they’re actually deepening it in ways the in-person living-together version couldn’t. I told Dustin Wednesday night that I think Mama and I are becoming friends in a way we couldn’t when I was the kid in her house. He said his mother had told him the same thing about the phase of their relationship after he’d gone to college.

Sunday I made what I’m calling makeover husband’s dinner delight — an updated version of an old casserole my grandmother used to make in the 1970s called “husband’s delight,” which is a layered ground beef and pasta casserole with a creamy cheese-and-sour-cream layer between the noodle-and-meat layers. The card from Grandma Carol’s box, dated 1976, called for a specific brand of canned cream of mushroom soup as the binder — that decade’s shortcut for any home cook trying to feed a family on a Tuesday — and I made it from scratch instead, partly because I had the time at college that Carol didn’t have raising kids, and partly because the from-scratch version is significantly better and is exactly the kind of update the recipe deserves in 2019.

The technique: a pound of egg noodles cooked al dente in salted water, drained, tossed with a tablespoon of butter to keep the noodles from sticking to themselves. Reserved.

The meat sauce: a pound and a half of eighty-twenty ground beef browned and drained. One yellow onion diced and three cloves of garlic minced sweated in the rendered fat. One twenty-eight-ounce can of crushed tomatoes, a six-ounce can of tomato paste, a half-cup of beef broth, a tablespoon of dried oregano, a teaspoon of dried basil, salt, pepper, a pinch of red-pepper flakes. Simmer fifteen minutes. The browned beef returned to the sauce.

The cheese-and-sour-cream layer is the move that distinguishes husband’s delight from straight pasta-and-meat casseroles: eight ounces of cream cheese softened, a cup of full-fat sour cream, a cup of full-fat cottage cheese, two cloves of garlic grated on the microplane, salt, pepper, fresh chopped parsley. Stir together until smooth and uniform.

The casserole assembly in a deep nine-by-thirteen baking pan: a layer of half the noodles on the bottom, a layer of half the meat sauce, the entire cheese-and-sour-cream mixture spread in a layer, the remaining noodles, the remaining meat sauce, a generous topping of grated mozzarella and grated parmesan. Cover with foil for the first twenty-five minutes of baking at three-fifty, uncovered for the last fifteen so the cheese on top blisters and browns. Total bake forty minutes. Rest ten minutes before cutting (the rest matters; cut too early and the layers slide).

Dustin came up at six. We watched a movie afterward with the dorm-mates. The first college-Sunday with a routine that felt like a routine had now been established. Dorm cooking on Sunday afternoon. Dustin in the kitchen for at least the last hour of prep. Dorm-mates drifting through to fill bowls. A movie at eight. Lights out by eleven. The first college-Sunday felt structured in the way Sapulpa Sundays had been structured, just in a different room with different people and a different stove. The kitchen is the kitchen wherever I’m cooking. That’s the lesson of week one through week six. The kitchen is portable. The kitchen comes with me.

From-scratch sauce instead of the can. Three layers, foil for twenty-five, uncovered for fifteen. Here’s the bake.

Makeover Husband’s Dinner Delight

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 3 cups uncooked egg noodles
• 2 cans (5 oz each) light tuna in water, drained
• 1 can (10.5 oz) reduced-fat cream of mushroom soup
• 1 cup frozen peas, thawed
• 3/4 cup reduced-fat sour cream
• 1/2 cup fat-free milk
• 1/4 cup finely diced yellow onion
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 cup shredded reduced-fat cheddar cheese, divided
• 1/4 cup whole wheat breadcrumbs
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

Instructions

1. Preheat oven. Heat oven to 375°F. Lightly coat a 2-quart baking dish with cooking spray and set aside.
2. Cook noodles. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook egg noodles according to package directions until just tender, about 7 minutes. Drain and set aside.
3. Make the filling. In a large bowl, whisk together cream of mushroom soup, sour cream, and milk until smooth. Stir in diced onion and black pepper. Fold in drained tuna, peas, cooked noodles, and 1/4 cup of the shredded cheddar until evenly combined.
4. Fill the baking dish. Spoon the mixture into the prepared baking dish and spread into an even layer.
5. Add the topping. In a small bowl, toss breadcrumbs with melted butter until coated. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup cheddar over the casserole, then scatter the buttered breadcrumbs evenly on top.
6. Bake. Bake uncovered for 25 to 30 minutes, until the casserole is bubbling around the edges and the topping is golden brown. Let rest 5 minutes before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 278 | Protein: 21g | Fat: 7g | Carbs: 33g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 510mg