dual personalities

Dinner is a perennial problem in our house. We never seem to know who will be there and when we can sit down to eat. I’ve learned to be creative. Sometimes my made-up dinners work and other times they don’t. I’ve had some brilliant culinary disasters in my day — the time I tried ‘easy’ lobster Newburg comes to mind (we threw it out).

One recent success involved a last minute attempt to stretch a small amount of leftover meatloaf into dinner for four. In case you’re interested, here’s my meatloaf recipe:
2 lbs. really good ground beef
one heaping teaspoon marmite
a couple handfuls of oats
one egg
a couple of tablespoons minced onion (optional)
Mix thoroughly and pop in the oven at 350 to 375 for about 1.5 hours or until cooked all the way through. Drain fat, let rest five minutes, and then serve.

For the sandwiches:

First cook Pepperidge Farms’ Garlic Bread according to package directions but for half the time. Meanwhile saute some onions in butter and slice the meatloaf very thin. When the garlic bread is ready, top with the meatloaf, the onions, and some grated cheddar cheese. Pop in the oven and cook until cheese is melted (about 3-4 minutes). Cut into pieces and serve as open faced sandwiches. Feeds four if you have a side salad and/or fruit. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of this.

But the recipe is endlessly flexible and a couple of weeks later, I adapted it for tuna as follows:
2 cans tuna (fancy albacore) in water
mayo to taste
half a red onion soaked in water for 15 minutes and then sliced very thin
tomatoes sliced thin
grated cheddar cheese

Follow the cooking directions as above.
This is how it turned out:

Easy tuna melt

Okay, the picture is not that appealing. I need to work on presentation, but the point is that you can make a meal out of whatever you’ve got lying around — deli meat, left over meat or roasted vegetables, bacon, lettuce and tomatoes… and in the end — hey, presto! — you have yummy food that will please the hungry hordes.