A Recipe Only Poppy Cannon Could Love

It's been a rant-rific week here at Chez Boeckman-Walker, so I thought I'd take a break from bitching and complaining to cook something. Not something new, mind you, Gentle Reader, but something that would be a bit of an experiment--a little culinary misadventure if all worked out right (which is to say, if all worked out to be a total f'in disaster).

Revising a Bland Favorite Yet Again
In the third chapter of her book Something From the Oven, Laura Shapiro spends a good length of time discussing Poppy Cannon, who was for a time a sort of maven of that canned goodness cooking many of us have come to associate with those wholesome and Whitey McWhitey years of the 1950s and early 1960s. I'd never heard of Poppy Cannon, and I have to admit I'm a bit in awe of how much she was able to do without a stunning amount of culinary training or expertise. She seems like one of those people who got where she got out of a combination of dumb luck and good timing. She was a largely substance-less talking head long before CNN, MSNBC and Fux allowed people to make a living out of being substance-less mouthpieces. (Or maybe there was more to her success that Shapiro just didn't uncover or choose to include. I dunno.)

Anywho, so Poppy Cannon seems to have been a huge fan of convenience food items and culinary shortcuts without worrying so much about the overall quality of the end product. She wrote a number of cookery books, and her best-known one apparently was The Can Opener Cookbook, which you can probably guess already, Gentle Reader, taught hausfraus trapped in the suburbs and other people living quiet lives of desperation (or so the myth has been perpetuated) how to prepare mock-gourmet meals with canned ingredients. (Can I get a "Viva la cream of mushroom soup!"?) Sure, not all of us have the time or talent to prepare haute cuisine, but...come on, folks! Have you read the label on a can of soup? On a can of anything you could prepare fresh or buy fresh? Frightening stuff there. Trust me.

Anywho, with Poppy Cannon on my mind and in my heart, I dug out the recipe card for curried tuna noodle casserole for Thursday's meal. I've made this recipe once back in May, then fixed up the leftovers in July. Enough time had passed to wipe the memory of those meals from the boys' minds, so why not see how I could muck up the recipe this time, especially by throwing in whatever canned or formerly canned ingredients caught my eye?

Here's the original recipe, which I've only prepared once:

Curried Tuna Noodle Casserole3/4 C green peas
3/4 C sliced green onions
2/3 C chopped red pepper
2 t curry powder
3 T all-purpose flour
1 1/2 C milk
4 C hot, cooked egg noodles
1/4 C chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 t NaCl
1 12 oz. can of tuna, drained
1/4 C reduced-fat buttery cracker crumbs (about 7 Ritz crackers)
2 carrots, sliced (optional)
3 celery stalks, chopped (optional)
Pinch of cinnamon (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
   
2. Prep a nonstick skillet with cooking spray, then warm it over medium heat.
   
3. Once the skillet is ready, saute the peas, onions, bell pepper and curry for 5 min. or until the veggies are tender.
   
4. Put the flour in a small bowl, then gradually add the milk, whisking to combine.
   
5. Add the sauce to the veggies, then bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and allow the veggies to simmer 2 min. or until the sauce has thickened.
   
6. Remove the heat and stir in the noodles, NaCl, parsley and tuna.
   
7. Pour the concoction into a 2-quart casserole dish. Sprinkle with the crumbs.
   
8. Cover and bake 20 min.

Nutritional Info
Calories: 275
Fat: 4.9 g
Sat fat: 1.7 g
Protein: 20.8 g
Carbs: 36.4 g
Fiber: 4.1 g
Cholesterol: 54 mg
Na: 437

I failed to record where I got this recipe. I suspected initially it came from one of my Weight Watchers recipe collections since it just...it's so damn seemingly wholesome and all-'merican that it just screams "I came from a Weight Watchers publication!" However, those options that I recorded make me wonder if I got it from one of the recipe Web sites I visit and jotted down some reviewer recommendations. Hmm. Oh well, I'm too lazy to go dig around and excavate the recipe, and I doubt you care that much about its source, Gentle Reader.

The Faudie's Futzings
Oh boy oh boy, did I ever futz with this recipe! Poppy Cannon, eat your heart out!

• I was too lazy to attempt the roux with the flour and milk, so I got out a can of reduced-fat cream of mushroom soup. Hey, I grew up on tuna noodle casserole made with Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. Sure, my can wasn't Campbell's brand, but it was good enough.
  
• I didn't have quite the full amount of green onions the recipe called for, which seems like an awfully large amount to me. I had five or six green onions on hand, so I used them. And I didn't saute them. I don't like my green onions all wilty.
  
• Red bell peppers are too pricey now, so I'd bought a green one (50 cents!) a week or so ago. However, green bells tend not to have any flavor, so I didn't even use it. I instead used about half a small can of diced green chiles that I'd opened last weekend when I made low-fat sour cream chicken enchiladas. I figured, hey, Indian food combines curry powder and green chiles all the time, so why not use them?
  
• I skipped the chopped parsley. I considered throwing in cilantro, but the boy hates cilantro and I didn't need to give him more fuel to refuse to eat this dish since it also contains peas.
  
• Speaking of peas, I used frozen peas and carrots. I have two bags of them in the freezer because the husband used them briefly as ice packs after his surgeries back in November. I hate to let things go to waste.... Plus the carrots added some nice color to the dish.
  
• I had four 5-oz. cans of tuna and a 5-oz. pouch of hickory smoke-flavored tuna that's been hanging out in the pantry for...the FSM knows how long. I truly had every intention of using two cans of tuna, but then I thought about that pouch and thought about my past experiences with flavored tuna in pouches, which isn't great. I mean, the flavor is hardly noticeable, so much so that you might as well be eating plain 'ol tuna. So in an effort to rid my pantry of the space-taking pouch, I threw that in. And discovered quickly that the promised hickory smoke flavor was quite present. And quite a contrast to the curry. Oh joy.
  
• Speaking of the curry powder, I used half a tablespoon. I'd noted on the recipe card after futzing with the leftovers back in July that I could use up to a tablespoon and a half of the powder in order to get some semblance of curry flavor. I didn't want to use that much this time around, and after the addition of the hickory smoke tuna, I was tremendously tempted to stir in more powder. But I didn't. Because....
  
• I didn't drain the one can of tuna I used. The cream of mushroom soup was awfully thick, and I used an entire bag of Ronzoni Whole Wheat Wide Noodles in hopes that the boy would at least get his fill of those, which have 8 grams of protein in a serving. Therefore, I dumped in tuna and spring water in hopes of thinning the soup base and knocking back the hickory smoke flavor a tad. And I'm happy to report that it worked to some degree.
  
• Screw the cracker crumbs, screw the casserole dish, screw baking this sucker. I dumped the goop of veggies, cream of mushroom soup and tuna over the big pot of noodles, tossed to combine, tossed in the green onions, crossed my fingers, said some prayers, made a few offerings and announced supper was ready.

So how did the meal go over, you ask, Gentle Reader? Well, the boys ate it without complaint. The husband said a few times he thought it was quite good (he might have been being kind), and the boy asked for additional servings twice, maybe three times--but he didn't eat his peas or the green onions, but that was totally expected. I have about a serving and a half left over for this weekend, which beats the huge half-casserole I had left over after the first time I made this recipe.

I'm not sure if Poppy Cannon would have approved my half-assed improvising and experimenting. I suspect, though, that she'd be pleased to some degree that someone was thinking of her and her cooking methods nearly 60 years after she published The Can Opener Cookbook. May the FSM bless you wherever you are, dear Poppy!

The Very Definition of Asinine

"Starting Feb[ruary] 10, retailers across the country may only sell products--new or used--for children 12 and younger that meet new standards for levels of lead and of phthalates, chemicals used to make plastics more pliable. All children's items, even those already in stores, will have to be tested and shown to comply or be thrown away."

Oh yeah, hooray for the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. Just take a moment, Gentle Reader, and this of the massive impact these new rules could have. Bid farewell to buying used kiddie clothes, toys and accoutrements at Goodwill, Salvation Army and other thrift stores and resale shops. Say farewell to such items on eBay, Craigslist--and perhaps even at the local flea markets and garage sales.

And if you're a toy collector the way the husband is? Ooh, this could be very painful since it would be seemingly illegal for him to buy a ratty old Chewbacca plush doll circa 1977 at a sci-fi convention. (Good thing we did that waaay back at the turn of the century. Oh! how I love that ratty Chewie!)

What if this law applies to books? Half-Price Books would have large, relatively empty sections in its stores.

If you haven't had your daily dose of outrage yet, Gentle Reader, check out the Austin-American Satan's story, or enjoy (if you can parse it--I had difficulty because it's so poorly written) the story from the local ABC affiliate, which is accompanied by a news segment. Or just go look up "Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008" on Google and see what you get.

Afterwards, take a moment to consider the sheer waste this law could engender. Consider how much higher the price of kids' clothes, toys and other items could be now that they all have to be tested.

Yeah, got yer mind boggled real good, didn't ya, Gentle Reader?

Asinine, I tell you. Asinine.

UPDATE
After kvetching about this situation with my good friend Alicia, she tracked down this PR the Consumer Product Safety Commission wisely issued today:

CPSC Clarifies Requirements of New Children’s Product Safety Laws Taking Effect in February
Guidance Intended for Resellers of Children’s Products, Thrift and Consignment Stores

Hmm, was the poor widdle CPSC feeling a widdle bit of heat over its inability to respond to inquiries about this asinine law? Did the poor widdle CPSC realize what a major blunder it had on its widdle hands?

The whole thing's still asinine.

It's Awards Season!

Let's face it, Gentle Reader, the first few months of a new year are really, really dull. After all the hullabaloo of the end-of-the-year holidays and all the anticipation that the new year is going to be different, we more often than not find ourselves back in the same dull grind. The air is usually cold (or cooler than normal if you're here in Austin), the sky is more often than not gray, the disappointment over failing to keep a new year's resolution (i.e., the body failed to spontaneously or near-spontaneously shed 20 or 30 pounds after only a few workouts and a few days of restricted eating) is high, the sales are lackluster (do you really need to stock up on towels, Rubbermaid totes, Hanes tightie whities and other "whites" and storage "solutions" every friggin' year?) and a sort of holding pattern descends as we all sort of bide our time until spring arrives. So what can bring a little excitement, a little anticipation back to our lives?

Awards seasons!

Doesn't everybody love an awards show? Doesn't everybody now get an opportunity to get an award now that we have so damn many awards shows? I mean, when I was a kid, I remember we had the Oscars, the Tonys and the Grammys--and this peculiar thing, usually on ABC, called the American Music Awards, but that was more of a concert on TV rather than an awards show. Then, later, came the MTV awards, which multiplied faster than horny rabbits, which, I think, fulfilled some ancient prophecy that then opened some mystic door to all kinds of other awards shows.

(The People's Choice Awards? Why do I give a dilly damn what the brain-dead readers or viewers of USA Today or Parade magazine or some other low-end, lowest common denominator media outlet choose? But, hey, last night Batman cleaned up! Check out a fun play-by-play over on Newsarama.)

It seems Awards Season has extended its tentacles and ensnared local public schools as well. The boy came home yesterday with a note about his elementary school's upcoming awards assembly. Yeah, an awards assembly in January. Just what kind of awards are we giving out in the middle of the school year? Why must we now honor kids after only one semester? Hell, if this were college and kids graduated and left in December, I could understand have two awards assemblies a year, but this ain't college.

I dunno, Gentle Reader. Call me...crazy? Sane? I just don't understand why we need an awards assembly after only one semester. Do we really think that kids' egos are that fragile and need constant boosting with meaningless awards--that accompany so much of the meaningless work they're required to do to meet meaningless metrics? (But hey, once these kids are adults, they'll be all ready to be drones in the workplace, where doing meaningless work to achieve meaningless metrics in the hopes of winning meaningless awards is de rigueur). And don't give me any B.S. about self-esteem.

Sheesh, and they wonder why Millennials have a raging sense of entitlement....