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Tastes Great, Looks Bad

March 5, 2009

Sometimes food is yummy, but no matter how you garnish it or what pretty plate you place it on, it’s just not appealing visually.

On the left is the tuna noodle casserole I made yesterday. I used cooked whole wheat elbow noodles, solid white tuna in water (drained), Le Sueur peas (drained), and Campbell’s Healthy Request condensed cream of mushroom soup. Mix it all together, spread it in a baking dish, and bake at 375° for about 40 minutes or until the top starts to get crunchy.

Tuna noodle casserole is one of those dishes I continue to make because I remember it fondly from my past. My mom made this dish when I was growing up — the peas *must* be Le Sueur for this to be my family’s recipe, as my dad loves them! Then in college, a roommate of mine and her boyfriend used to cook a version of this casserole every so often, affectionately calling it “tuna nood.” More recently, my mom brought this dish over when I was a brand-new mother, and cooking dinner myself while tending to a constantly-nursing newborn seemed impossible. All happy memories, which make this dish way more appealing to me than the way it looks, or the way it tastes, which is humble at best. You can’t argue with comfort food, though!

On the right is my Baked Tofu in Almond Peanut-Cilantro Sauce. This dish uses frozen peas rather than canned like the tuna noodle, and I tried something new: instead of cooking the peas along with the cauliflower and tofu, I tossed them in after the dish came out of the oven. The heat from the freshly-baked food was enough to defrost the peas, and they stayed bright green. Regardless, the beige sauce on beige veggie and protein, plus the way the cauliflower and tofu tend to crumble and mush together a bit, still overwhelm the springy green of the peas. It’s a dish I really love to eat, but I’d probably not serve it to company — even a sprig of cilantro on top can’t save it.

Of course, photographing these meals a day or two after they were cooked, straight out of the fridge doesn’t help their looks much. But they still taste great as leftovers.

Filed under: Things I Love,Thinking Out Loud