Food hop - Tuna Italiano

As the third year students are currently sitting in the gym either getting some sort of telling off or a motivational speech ahead of tomorrows high school exams (its very difficult to tell the difference) I've got some time to kill. So what better way than to post something about food, hh food you rule my life, well you and monkey's but mostly food. Eventually I will post all the Fukui trip pictures up as I am sure you cannot wait for more crab tales in the meantime .... dot dot dot.

The other weekend me and T.O.H found ourselves in our house scrabbling in the cupboard looking for something to cook for dinner, kind of ready steady cook but without the audience, professional chiefs, food nutritionists, oh and Ainsley Harriot (actually is Ready steady cook still on?) so frankly nothing like ready steady cook... anyway what I'm eventually trying to get to is that as usual you can always rely on the stray bag of pasta and a tin of tuna that's sitting in your cupboard..well its either that or make up a cup a soup with added hot dog sausages from a tin hmmmm stomach churning....
All recipes has rather a nice feature where you can type in your ingredients and its gives you a variety of recipes, and in this case I found one for Tuna Italiano. Tuna cooked with onion, olives and garlic salt mixed with pasta makes a quick and very easy meal. I'm currently in the process of discovering the joy of dried mushrooms (yes I am that boring) which if you've never used before (as I hadn't until only the other month) all you need to do is let give them a wipe, let them soak in water (or chicken stock for more taste) for 15-25 minutes give them another wipe and use, the stock can then be poured through a coffee filter and used to add a delicious mushroom taste to things as it is below. I've added the mushrooms, more garlic, string beans and some tomato ketchup to the recipe to give it a bit more taste but there's plenty of other food stuffs to add,



Ingrediants.

1 can of tuna (Dont throw the oil away)
1 onion finely chopped
2 or 3 cloves of garlic (crushed)
about 150 -200g of chickpeas
6 or 7 olives (black but green if necessary) remove stones and chop
6 or 7 string beans cut into quarters
a hand full of precut dried mushrooms (I use a small packet of pre cut simply soak in the chicken stock, then wipe with some kitchen paper, pour the mushroom water through a strainer (or a coffee filter works fine) into a cup to remove any traces of dirt
150 ml of chicken stock
1 teaspoon of garlic salt\powder
1 tablespoon of tomato ketchup
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon of Parmesan cheese
enough penn pasta for 2 1 tablespoon of olive oil

put the dried mushrooms in the chicken stock, mix and then leave to soak for about 15 minutes.

Heat oil on a medium high flame in a frying pan, add crushed garlic and cook for about 1 minutes. Add chopped onions and stir for a further 2 minutes. Add the mushrooms and the chicken stock to the pan, reduce heat to medium, stir and then leave to cook for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes the onion should be cooked and soft, add the tuna and its oil, the chick peas, string beans, olives , garlic salt, a dash of salt and pepper and the ketchup, stir together and leave on a medium low heat cover if need be.In a saucepan bring some water up to a boil add olive oil and some salt and cook pasta until aldante (or to your taste).
Drain and then add to the tuna mix and stir on a low heat. Add the Parmesan and then stir until well mixed and heated through, eat and enjoy.