CBF – Baked Tuna Mornay with Wholegrain Pasta

06 Dec CBF – Baked Tuna Mornay with Wholegrain Pasta

As I transition out of a familiar but objectively unusual state of mind that includes an incapacity to cook for myself I am still on a mission to accumulate a set of recipes for when you are low on energy, motivation or capacity to prepare anything but the most simple of recipes. I call this category of recipes my CBF recipes – standing for ‘Couldn’t Be Effed’, inspired by the term coined by a good friend.

It would be great to get to the point in my practice and knowledge where I feel like I can nourish myself in a healthy way with the least amount of fuss or effort, so these experiments continue.

Easiest way to make a pasta dish?

Today I bring you a recipe that I made this week that ticked many of the boxes of good health, and yet came together with the minimum of preparation. I have been trying to work out how to make a wholesome pasta dish without actually going to the trouble of boiling a pot of water and waiting for the pasta to cook, meanwhile cooking a sauce to put on the pasta. I know it doesn’t sound like a lot of effort. However, I think that when you are feeling sick, exhausted, traumatised, or otherwise poorly, even that kind of level of effort can feel like ‘too much’.

So, I am delighted to report that this week I made a delicious pasta dish, after a couple of stumbles, by simply baking the pasta with a few other ingredients in a baking dish in the oven. The trick is to use broth and/or milk to cover the layer of pasta in the bottom of the baking dish so that during the cooking process it soaks up the liquid and becomes flexible.

I had tried to do the same thing with a tomato puttanesca last weekend, but the pasta came out dry, a bit crunchy and not very palatable. So, it was delightful to find this trick, that I think could be used with a range of different ingredients to make a variety of tasty and wholesome easy to make pasta dishes.

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Baked Creamy Tuna Mornay with Pasta

Ingredients

• 1 cup wholegrain pasta
• 1 cup chicken broth or bone broth
• 1/2 cup oat milk
• 2 cloves garlic crushed
• 2 cups vegetables on hand (I used cauliflower, broccoli, asparagus, carrot, zucchini) - mushrooms would have been nice if you have room roughly diced
• 400g can tuna in springwater - sustainably sourced
• 2 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 cup grated cheese (I used crumbled feta and it was fine) grass fed, organic
• 1 tsp chilli flakes

Instructions

• Place pasta in a layer of a baking dish (10 - 14 cup capacity) and pour chicken broth and milk over the top along with crushed garlic - stir to combine
• Chop vegetables and place in a layer on top of the pasta
• Cover the baking dish with aluminium foil and bake at 200 C for 20 minutes
• Remove from the oven, add tuna, cheese, mayonnaise, chilli flakes and anything else you fancy - think capers, gherkins, olives etc and stir through
• Return to the oven and bake for another 20 minutes
• Remove from the oven and let stand for 2 - 5 minutes. Enjoy!

Notes

I realised that the omission to this recipe as opposed to the classic stovetop recipe is wholegrain mustard. Perhaps that could be added with the tuna, mayo and cheese.

Variations on this dish could be to use diced grass fed organic chicken instead of tuna. In which case, it would be added to the baking dish with the vegetables, probably omitting the mayo and stirring through the cheese at the 20 minute mark.

This made four small serves in my baking dish, which was wonderful because leftovers can simply be heated up on the stovetop with a little water.

Enjoy!!