Lazy Mom’s Tuna Casserole

In case you haven’t heard this about me, I hate cooking. I don’t like looking at cookbooks, finding recipes, reading recipes, or shopping for food. In fact, there are certain kinds of food (like raw meat) that I have to force myself to touch, and I only do so because I love my kids and don’t want them to starve. If it was just me I would probably live on cold cereal and peanut butter sandwiches.

Part of the hatred may stem from the fact that I’m truly terrible at the whole process. I’m notorious for burning grilled cheese sandwiches and pancakes, for forgetting key ingredients, and for having to Google things like “what does sauté mean.”

Fortunately for me – and for the health of our family – I married a man who loves to cook. He actually enjoys reading cookbooks, trying new recipes out and making stuff up. The thought of making stuff up in the kitchen gives me a physical anxiety attack, so I consider him pretty miraculous.

We really try to prioritize sitting at the table all together for family meals, so on those unfortunate days when our schedule doesn’t allow time for him to come home from work and put dinner on the table before we have to leave for some activity, I am in charge of the cooking. I’m not going to lie; we occasionally have frozen pizza or, my personal favorite, frozen chicken nuggets on those days. However, sometimes I attempt to put something on the table that takes a little more effort and has a modicum of nutritional value.

Yesterday was one of those days, and I am incredibly proud of myself, so I thought I would share. Not only did I make something with multiple ingredients, I did it without a recipe, with only a couple panicked phone calls to Aaron, AND, it tasted good! I’ve hit one or two of those, but never all of them at the same time. So to pat myself on the back and let all of you know that I actually can make something other than flat brownies and burnt grilled cheese, here’s the recipe for my awesome tuna casserole last night. I’m calling it the Lazy Mom’s Tuna Casserole because it only took me about 15 minutes to throw together since it uses some jarred stuff.

Ingredients:

• 1 15oz jar creamy alfredo sauce
• 1 12oz can tuna
• Spaghetti noodles
• 1 sliced up fire roasted red pepper (out of a jar)
• 1 cup chopped frozen spinach
• ½ cup mozzarella cheese
• 2 tbsp butter
• ¼ cup panko bread crumbs

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°. Cook pasta. In casserole dish, combine alfredo sauce, drained tuna, pasta, chopped red pepper, cooked spinach and mozzarella. Mix together. Melt butter and mix in bread crumbs, then sprinkle on top. Stick that baby in the oven and cook it for about 30 minutes.

Ta da! Pretty easy, right? The kids loved it, and even Aaron liked it! This fed our whole family with very few leftovers, so you can adjust amounts as needed.