And Then I Found I Had No Tuna

I'm not a great one for eating fish, and for many years the nearest I got to fresh fish was fish fingers.  These days I'm slightly more adventurous in that I will eat tinned salmon or tuna.  Just lately I've had quite a craving for tinned fish - presumably I'm lacking something in my diet - and have eaten a lot of salmon and cucumber sandwiches.  Today, I fancied making a tuna pasta bake.  I found a lovely recipe on t'internet and was convinced I had all the ingredients necessary.  Luckily for me, I decided to just double check on the ingredients before I set off for my chiropractor's appointment.  Would you Adam and Eve it, I had no tinned tuna.

I knew I didn't have time to get to Aldi before my appointment and also knew I wouldn't feel like schlepping down there afterwards either - rather tender after having been soundly pummelled by the chiropractor.  So, it was back to the drawing board for tonight's meal.

At the back of the fridge I found a pointy cabbage - bought last week for 29p in Aldi and still wrapped.  Amazingly enough, (what do they spray these veggies with?) it appared to be as fresh as a daisy so my mind started thinking along the lines of stuffed cabbage leaves.   I knew I had rice but didn't know what else was knocking about to make the stuffing with.  From the depths of my very small fridge I managed to find half a pack of smoked bacon, (bought by mistake but rather tasty) half an onion, a sweet red pepper and a beef tomato.  The onion, pepper and bacon were fried off in a frying pan, I skinned the huge tomato and chopped that up finely and added it to the mixture with a chopped garlic clove.  Finally, I added half a tin of sweetcorn, a dollop of tomato puree and a pinch of mixed herbs.  I added all this to some cooked basmati and left it whilst I had my lunch and whilst the outer cabbage leaves were cooling from their five-minute dip in boiling water.

After lunch I put a good large tablespoonful or two of the mixture in each cabbage leaf, rolled it up and now all I have to do is make a cheese sauce to cover the lot and bake in the oven for half an hour or so.  They look quite good but the proof, as always, will be in the eating.  I'll let you know tomorrow if they were any good or not.

Comments

[Wendy]

Your first 2 sentences were describing me exactly!
Your recipe sounded very tasty and it was clever of you to make it up as you went along. Looking forward to hearing how it tasted with the cheese sauce on top. Will give it a try myself sometime.

[Ilona]

Food looks nice, I'll come for tea :-) I always have a couple of tins of tuna in the cupboard.....for the cats, and if there is any left over I might get a taste of it. That's before I put it on their dishes, not after, ha ha.

[Caroline]

Sounds absolutely delicious to me!

[Teresa]

That's a great use for cabbage leaves. I can never normally think of ways to make cabbage more tasty but this is great. Sometimes I add wholegrain mustard while it's cooking but that's about it!

[white o'morn cottage]

I have cabbage here and will be trying that recipe. I am just catching up on all your posts. Great mitts idea! You're a lateral thinker!