Tuna Melt

Tuna melt is one of those tricks in my sleeve that I can whip it up once a while and it's always a satisfying, warm, delicious meal. It doesn't require a lot of odd specific ingredients that you have to run to the grocery store. Also you can make it fancy or plain. Whether it's week night and we're way too done to start anything from scratch, or it's the weekend and I just want to kick back and sit on the patio with a drink (which exactly what I'm doing) - do a Tuna Melt.



What you need:
- 2 cans of tuna in water, drained
- 1 stalk of celery, chopped
- 1 tomato, sliced to thick slices (0.5-1 cm pieces)
- 1 tbsp of red onion, chopped
- 1 handful of chopped parsley
- half a lemon, juiced
- fresh ground pepper
- sliced bread (I used rye)
- 1/4 cup of mayo
- 1 tbsp of Dijon mustard
- shredded cheddar and cubed brie
- 1 pickle, chopped

Recipe:
- Mix tuna, chopped celery, chopped onion, pepper, lemon juice, mayo, mustard, and pickle in a bowl, that's our tuna salad topping.
- Toast at 400F your 2 slices of bread. I spread some butter on the bread on both sides and toasted them in the oven on the pan for 5 min first. I chose to do an open-face sandwich but you can certainly toast more bread and do a a closed style.
- Pile the whole bowl of tuna mix on top of the bread. I had the tuna piled high! It's all fine we're going to be eating this with a fork and a knife so don't worry about trying to pick it up.
- Put a layer of thickly sliced tomato on your tuna sandwich. I know it sounds weird - who says "thickly sliced"? But that's done for a reason because you want the tomato to be able to withstand the baking and still hold its shape and be a bit firm. go with cm thick slices if you want.
- Wedge cubes of brie and shreds of cheddar on top. Your goal is to at least cover all the tomato surface, and you can add more if that's your MO, don't be shy.
- Stick your baking tray back in the oven, turn on the broiler on for about 4-5 min until the cheeses are melted.
- Serve, Now! Because it has to be eaten hot.

Note:
- My simpler version had no pickle, no Dijon, no lemon, no tomato, no brie, and no parsley. But hey, it's fine like that too. I combined a few recipes when making this dish. You can too, throw in ingredients you like b'cuz obviously, you do you. Today I felt like jazzing it up a bit, here are m inspiration recipes:
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchen/tuna-melt-recipe-2125452
- I served mine today with some awesome sauteed rapini, it goes really well with everything and I really wanted to eat some of the nice dark green veggies. See recipe here: https://www.eatwithjia.com/2020/03/sauteed-rapini.html