Recipe Review - Creamy Tuna Pasta Bake Quick Fix in the TMX page 124

[judydawn]

GD made this for us for lunch today and I put out the ingredients for the full quantity as I intended sending home a casserole dish for her family for their tea.  I used ordinary spiral pasta not buckwheat and was surprised at how much pasta was called for. I went ahead and used the full amount and was very impressed with this way of cooking pasta - how easy is that to place the dry pasta in the thermosaver, cover it with boiling water and 15 minutes later you have it full of cooked pasta. There was so much pasta though that I held back 200g of it once cooked and GD spread the rest into 2 decent sized casserole dishes. I was a bit concerned that the sauce was not going to be liquidy enough for the amount of pasta.  The only change I made to the sauce was to use a roasted red capsicum instead of a fresh one and I used Carnation Light & Creamy milk instead of cream but this shouldn't have made any difference to the sauce.  The end result was a somewhat dry tasting pasta meal and GD who loves tuna, would not eat it.  The flavours were there but it needed something to lift it so for tea I took out a pack of frozen cheese sauce and added 2 big spoonsful to each serving bowl before heating them in the microwave.  What a transformation that was to the dish.  I didn't send the other dishful home for their meal so will now freeze it as is and it will be a nice standby meal for unexpected visitors with the addition of a fresh batch of cheese sauce stirred through.
The picture is of the original meal without the cheese sauce addition.

[CreamPuff63]

so don't cook as much pasta as the recipe says? what would you give it out of 5?

[judydawn]

The thermosaver was full to the top of cooked pasta CP.  The recipe says serves 6 but to me it would be more like 8. There is not enough tuna sauce for the amount of pasta so I would definitely cut down on the pasta.
2/5 before adding my cheese sauce which takes it up to a 4/5 - big difference CP.  With the cheese sauce I would serve it to anyone, without it we ate it under sufferance.

[alyce alexandra]

Hi Judy, love the fact you are cooking up a storm from QFITT!

Regular wheat pasta swells a lot more than buckwheat pasta when cooked - therefore when substituting with regular pasta, I would recommend reducing it to maybe 250g of dry pasta. This amount will fit better with the amount of sauce!

Just wondering did you use tuna in oil or tuna in spring water? I use tuna in olive oil which would make the dish a lot moister than tuna in spring water.

Love the idea about the cheese sauce - what a fantastic addition! I can imagine a TM bechamel sauce being fantastic on the top.

Cheers,
Alyce

[judydawn]

Thanks for your comments Alyce - if we can discuss our different end products and why things turn out as they do, it does help tremendously. I guess when we use different ingredients things are not going to be the same but as long as we get there in the end and the meal is not wasted, no harm is done.
Never using buckwheat pasta before, I was unaware of the difference so that does explain there being far too much pasta so my mistake there.
I did use tuna in spring water as I don't generally use the oil variety so another mistake by me.
Thanks so much for clearing this up and with the reviews so readily available for people to check on before making any recipe, no-one should make the same mistake as I did.
Love your book and will be ordering one for DD for her birthday in May.

[judydawn]

This is another bowl of leftovers with the addition of some cheese sauce - delicious.

[alyce alexandra]

What a lovely comment/approach Judy This forum provides such a great opportunity to discuss these things - it really is fantastic.

Again, I admire your ability to make any dish work for you! Nothing worse than wasting food, or eating out of sufferance. Love the cheese sauce idea! What doesnt taste great with cheese sauce

[cookie1]

Alyce I don't have your book yet (hopefully soon) but I do love the way you have got back to people here and the lovely positive way you have taken their comments re your recipes. Congratulations.

[alyce alexandra]

Thank you so much Cookie - I really appreciate the kind words

[alyce alexandra]

Bit of an update for anyone wanting to use wheat pasta rather than buckwheat:

Made this recipe again last night using a 2.7L casserole dish and wheat pasta. Used 250g of wheat pasta and it made the perfect amount for the dish. The pasta cooked in 15 minutes in the food warmer, but this time may differ depending on the exact pasta used.

Alyce xo

[CreamPuff63]

Thanks alyce, thats very handy, have put a note in my book 

[judydawn]

Thanks Alyce, this information will be most useful for those wanting to use wheat pasta. 

I'd like to add that I have cooked 16 of your recipes in 10 days and when I weighed in this morning, I was surprised to find I had lost 1 kg.  I haven't been on a diet but have been weighing in more regularly this year and didn't realise I had been eating more healthily since using your cookbook.  An added benefit on top of enjoying the lovely recipes.

[Katiej]

Wow Judy 16 recipes in 10 days, you (and CP) are really working your way through the book.  Great effort!
Bonus on the weight loss  , I'm sure Alcye will be pleased to hear the added benefit of her book.

I going to have to try this, just for the novelty of letting the pasta cook itself in the Thermoserver, I never would have thought of that 

[judydawn]

I was amazed at the result Katie, I thought it would just have softened but it was fully cooked (I don't know if buckwheat would have been but ordinary pasta certainly was).  I will be using this method from now on in whilst a pasta sauce is cooking.

[Katiej]

I might get some buckwheat pasta and try both this and normal pasta (lucky I have 2 Thermoservers  )

How easy though!
That's way I love this forum and my TMX, so many new things to try