My mom can beat up your mom!

Okay, maybe not, but my mom's tuna casserole can beat up anybody else's, even my grammie's. Many years ago when I was visiting Grammie we had a tuna casserole cook-off (this involved about a week solid of eating the stuff, which may have been over-kill). In my opinion, Grammie's entry tanked due to the un-welcome addition of PEAS ("those round green things," as Wombat refers to them, rather derisively). We had Wombat's tuna casserole on a rainy Saturday night this week.

To make my mom's tuna casserole, start by preheating the oven to 350 and put on a pot of water to boil.

Once the water is boiling, add about 3/4 of a box of rotini (curly pasta). You already know that I prefer Barilla, but Walmart past works fine too. Boil the rotini for about 5 minutes - you want it slightly under-cooked.

While the pasta is boiling, dump two cans of cream of celery soup into a mixing bowl. Fill each soup can about 3/4 full of milk, and then pour that into the bowl. Whisk the soup and milk together.

Open and drain two cans of tuna (preferable dolphin-safe, white, packed in water).

After 5 minutes, drain the pasta and put it into a casserole that's been sprayed with your non-stick repellent of choice. Pour the soup/milk mix over the noodles and stir well. Use a fork to break up the tuna, and distribute the tuna through the pasta mix. Stir again.

My mom's tuna casserole is topped with bread crumbs tossed in melter butter (NOT potato chips, saltines, or antyhing else - REAL bread crumbs). Around here, we save the odd lonely hamburger bun, the end of the loaf of bread, etc. to have an on-going supply of bread crumbs stored in the freezer (let the bread dry out for a day or two, turn it into crumbs with a rolling pin or grater, and store in a Ziploc bag in the freezer). My brother Igor is not possessed of such foresight and is forced to buy paper cans of bread crumbs (Progresso and Walmart both make such items). Mine are better, but whatever works for you. Decide for yourself how much melted butter to use and how thick you want your bread crumb topping.

After adding the bread crumbs, put the casserole in the oven a bake for 45 - 60 minutes (depending on the depth/shallowness of your chosen casserole dish).

Don't forget to recycle the soup and tuna cans!