If good sense prevailed, the stretches in between holiday feasts would be times of light eating. Unfortunately, many of us get on a roll and eating hearty seems the thing to do. Besides, the weather is just chilly enough to make comfort food seem inviting, even logical.

This explains why I found myself standing in a grocery store aisle two days after Thanksgiving, suggesting to my husband that he make a pot roast on Sunday. It probably also explains why he cheerfully agreed.

Then there was the trip into the past I took the other day while staring into the cupboard that holds our canned goods. This is a curious place, where soups seem to multiply and cans of various other ingredients attest to recipes I probably intended to make three years ago.

Anyone who happened onto this cupboard might reason that I was a survivalist who’d had a brush with Middle Eastern cooking on the way to being thrown out of a church auxiliary cooking circle. Hence, the shelf stocked with pinto beans, tahini, Jell-O and canned fruit.

Anyway, as I stood there trying to remember when and why I had acquired canned tangerine slices, I espied the stacks of canned tuna. Maybe it was on sale (several times, since I have several brands), maybe it was a summer sandwich thing – but for whatever reason, I have amassed eight cans of tuna.

That’s when it hit me. I was seized by the memory of my mother’s tuna casserole. Tuna, rice, Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup – topped with slices of Velveeta cheese, that testament to American ingenuity that didn’t require refrigeration in the grocery store. In my early years of grade school tuna casserole was my favorite food, which probably accounts for why we ate it so often during the winter. And, growing up in Kansas in the early 1960s, this was as close to seafood as it got.

Standing in my own kitchen in my 40s, I could taste it and even see a pile of it sitting on a plate on my mother’s green Formica kitchen table. But that’s as far as it went. I quickly decided that the memory was better than the reality would be today.

What I couldn’t shake, though, was the idea of a casserole that’s easy to assemble and hits the spot when the weather turns cold. The following recipe turned up about five years ago in Bon Appetit.

You’ll note that the tuna stays on the shelf.

Creamy Chicken-Noodle Casserole with Spinach and Mushrooms

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1 pound skinless boneless chicken breasts

1 1/2 cups water

2 large garlic cloves, minced

1 bay leaf

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch

2 cups low-fat milk

1 teaspoon dried tarragon

1 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 cup dry white wine

1 10-ounce package frozen spinach, thawed, squeezed dry

8 ounces spinach fettucine

8 ounces mushrooms, sliced

1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil

3/4 cup coarse fresh breadcrumbs from French bread

1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Combine chicken, 1 cup water, garlic and bay leaf in a large saucepan. Cover and simmer just until chicken is cooked through, turning once, about 15 minutes. Transfer chicken to plate; cool. Shred chicken. Pour cooking liquid into measuring cup, adding more water to measure 1 cup if necessary. Reserve cooking liquid.

Whisk flour and cornstarch in a large, heavy saucepan. Add 1 cup of the milk, whisk until smooth. Stir in remaining 1 cup of milk, tarragon, salt, nutmeg and reserved 1 cup of the chicken cooking liquid. Stir over medium heat until the mixture thickens and boils, about 5 minutes. Add wine, stir until mixture is very thick, about 2 minutes longer. Remove from heat. Stir in shredded chicken and spinach.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Oil an 11-by-7-inch glass baking dish. Cook the fettucine in salted, boiling water until just tender but firm to the bite. Drain. Return to pot. Add mushrooms and chicken mixture; toss. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to prepared baking dish.

Heat oil in a small, nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add breadcrumbs; stir 1 minute. Sprinkle over casserole. Bake until casserole bubbles and breadcrumbs are golden, about 20 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes. Sprinkle with Parmesan.

Makes 6 servings.