Recipe: Tuna Cheese Noodle Casserole

Wow... I found it rather difficult to find a tuna noodle casserole with cheese sauce difficult.  They all seemed to use kraft dinner as a base and I didn't want that.

I eventually found this one, declared it good enough, and modified it just a touch. 

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, divided
• 1 (8 ounce) package uncooked medium egg noodles
• 1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
• 1 stalk celery, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 8 ounces button mushrooms, sliced
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups milk
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 (5 ounce) cans tuna, drained and flaked
• 1 cup frozen peas, thawed
• 3 tablespoons bread crumbs
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese 

 Modifications: No mushrooms (goal is to have son eat it as well).  A touch more egg noodles as I wanted to use up a wee bit left left in another bag.   I put about 1 cup grated cheese into the sauce.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Butter a medium baking dish with 1 tablespoon butter.
2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add egg noodles, cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until al dente, and drain.
3. Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a skillet over medium-low heat. Stir in the onion, celery, and garlic, and cook 5 minutes, until tender. Increase heat to medium-high, and mix in mushrooms. Continue to cook and stir 5 minutes, or until most of the liquid has evaporated.
4. Melt 4 tablespoons butter in a medium saucepan, and whisk in flour until smooth. Gradually whisk in milk, and continue cooking 5 minutes, until sauce is smooth and slightly thickened. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in tuna, peas, mushroom mixture, and cooked noodles. Transfer to the baking dish. Melt remaining 2 tablespoons butter in a small bowl, mix with bread crumbs, and sprinkle over the casserole. Top with cheese.
5. Bake 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until bubbly and lightly browned.

Modification: Added the butter into the vegetable mixture and then mixed the flour into it and added the milk slowly to that.   Stirring the whole time.  I added finely ground old cheddar to this milk/veggie mix.