Creation #3: Tuna Lima Bake: Hearty Food for Poor People!

Are you poor, hungry, and suffering through a cold, bleak winter? Then flip open Good Housekeeping's Casserole Book from 1958 and try out the Tuna Lima Bake! Warm, hearty, and healthy, the Tuna Lima Bake may look like something scraped off the bottom of a ship, but it's the perfect way to feed cold hungry poor people in a hurry!

At around $12.00 for the ingredients (and probably less depending on what you have in your cupboard), the Tuna Lima Bake is our cheapest retro food experiment so far. It's also the easiest.

     The first step is to mix cream of celery soup, a bag of frozen lima beans (thawed), and some canned tuna in a bowl. Once it's thoroughly mixed, it's time to pour the goop into a casserole dish. Good Housekeeping suggests: "Casseroles will be easier to clean if, before filling them, you grease them lightly with shortening or salad oil applied with waxed paper or a pastry brush." We didn't have shortening, or 'salad oil' or waxed paper or pastry brushes, so we just poured some vegetable oil in the bottom and swirled it around a bit. Then Lydia poured the mixture into the casserole dish.

    The next step is optional, and was another tip from Good Housekeeping: "Try varying the toppings on your casserole dishes. Here are some suggestions: corn flakes, crackers, corn or potato chips, in gay designs or as crumbs."  We didn't know any gay designs, so we just crumbled some Maui Sweet Onion chips across the top. Yes, this probably wasn't the most authentic topping to choose, but it was the first thing we saw when we opened the cupboard and it sounded yummy.

    Our next step involves white bread and cheese. Once again, the recipe calls for American processed cheese, but I wanted real cheese and we already had real cheese without having to buy it, so that decided that. We did go with the white bread, though. It has to be toasted and then cut in half diagonally making triangles. You then cut some triangles of cheese to place on the triangles of toast, and then you can place them across the top of the casserole.  Now it's ready for the oven.


    The casserole takes about 45 minutes to bake. We were a little worried about the toast and cheese. We weren't sure how you could bake toast and cheese for 45 minutes without it blackening into charcoal, but it actually turned out amazing. The toast gets quite brown and hard, but the cheese gets all thick and melty, a truly delicious combination.


This casserole turned out to be wonderful. It was a nice warm and filling casserole, perfect for a cold winter night, and we both had two helpings. While the cheesy bread on top was probably the best part, the casserole was a nice, cheap way to have a good hearty meal when you're broke and cold.