Tuna pasta bake

I made this yesterday for Blistering Barnacle and his girlfriend (OK, mostly for myself). It's quite simple, but you have to do lots of things at once towards the end so you need to be good at multitasking. It's also very easy to adapt to whatever vegetables you have lying around.

Ingredients:

• One onion, chopped
• One pepper, chopped
• Some celery, chopped
• Some mushrooms, chopped
• A glug of olive oil
• A tin of tomatoes
• Some tomato purée
• A tin of tuna
• Some pasta shapes
• A knob of butter
• A couple of tablespoons of plain flour
• Some milk (about a glassful (a reasonable-sized glass))
• Some cheddar, grated
• A pinch of cayenne pepper

Method:

• Soften vegetables in a reasonably big pot with the olive oil.
• Add the tinned tomatoes, adding about another half-tinful of water and some tomato purée.  Leave to simmer for a while as you grate cheese and switchon the kettle
• Put pasta on to boil and switch on oven. GM7/200 C is OK.
• Melt butter in a separate pan and add flour. Stir together and gradually add the milk to make a white sauce (PRO TIP: warm the milk first to avoid lumps). Slowly add the grated cheese and allow to melt into the sauce. Stir in the cayenne pepper.
• Add the tuna to the tomato sauce and stir in well.
• Assemble! (I put pasta in an ovenproof dish first, then add the tomato sauce and stir it together a bit, then add the cheese sauce and sort of fold it in so there are cheese-saucy pockets in places. Then sprinkle the rest of the grated cheese on top (see below)).

•  Bake in the oven for at least 20 minutes.
• Eat!

 I was a little bit too enthusiastic about the last step, and only just remembered to take a picture of the finished product!

We have spent most of this evening watching clips of comedians on youtube (I recommend the Australian Adam Hill!) so I am going to go to bed now.