So, what’s the point of all this bargain grocery shopping anyway? For Erin Chase, of $5 Dinners, it is to feed her family of four for $5 or less every single night. Her kids had to eat a Gluten Free, Casein Free, Soy Free diet earlier this year and she still managed to feed them for less than $5.
Check out www.5dollardinners.com today because she featured me as a guest writer! I wrote an article about low-cost alternatives to ice cream. Yes, this summer we can stock up on ice cream for next-to-nothing, but those deals will fade away come Labor Day. Then what? Should I hold off on a cold treat until next summer? Nope. I can’t do it, but I also can’t bring myself to pay full price for ice cream. I got creative and concocted painstakingly developed a couple low-cost alternatives to ice cream that my family loves.
Once you start reading Erin’s blog you’ll find yourself calculating the cost of your meals, well I do anyway, and I’ll share what we had tonight:
Penne Pasta Bake1 box Whole Wheat Penne, cooked (Free)
1 pound pork sausage, browned ($1 – bought on sale at Eastertime when brunch foods are priced the lowest)
1 pound ground turkey, browned ($1.87 – my one staple from Sam’s Club)
16 oz. Cottage Cheese ($1.59)
2 eggs ($.10 – these were on sale $.59 per dozen recently)
1/2 c grated Parmesan ($.25)
1 tsp salt ($.01 – I buy salt at the dollar store)
1 tsp pepper (Free)
1.5 jars spaghetti sauce ($.30)
8 oz mozzarella cheese ($1)
Completely line an 8 x 8 baking pan with two sheets of aluminum foil in a cross formation. Make sheets long enough that the aluminum foil extends about 3/4 inch beyond top of pan.
Combine first 8 ingredients and half the spaghetti sauce. Mix. Spoon into 9 x 13 baking dish and remaining portion into 8 x 8 dish. Pour remaining sauce over penne mixture. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. Bake both pans at 350 degrees for 25-35 minutes or until cheese is browned and pasta is heated all the way through. Remove pans from oven. Serve dinner from the 9 x 13 pan.
Cool the 8 x 8 pan in the fridge then put the whole pan in the freezer. Let freeze until solid (about 4 hours). Remove pan from freezer. Gently remove the casserole, aluminum foil and all, from the pan and place it into a gallon size, freezer-quality ziploc bag. Label the bag “Penne Pasta Bake” and date it. Place bake in freezer to eat another night. To reheat: remove frozen casserole from freezer, place back into same 8 x 8 pan, heat at 350 degrees until warm (about 60-90 minutes).
Total cost: $6.61. That’s $6.61 for both pans of pasta bake. Tonight we ate the 8 x 8 pan, which is about 1/3 of the total casserole which makes tonight’s dinner about $2.10. The 9 x 13 pan was about $4.51.
Two true confessions about this recipe: 1) I have been intentionally stocking up on things to make lasagna for at least 4 months. Yep, I’m a planner. 2) This actually was a lasagna recipe, but I swapped penne noodles and made it into a casserole because it was faster the night I made it then layering ingredients in lasagna form.
Your turn: What is your best bargain meal – and no, skipping dinner at a cost of $0 doesn’t count? What meals do you love, but rarely make because they are so expensive? Let’s work together to think about lower cost alternatives to those expensive ingredients.
Chicken Enchiladas
Chicken ($2.50)- pulled from a leftover rotiserie chicken we had for a meal the night before.
1 small onion $.50
1/3 cup cream cheese $.50
1 small can green chilies $.89
6 tortillas $1.00
1/3 cup half and half $.50
1 cup shredded cheese $50
Cook onions in non stick pan. Add chicken to heat up. In a bowl, stir in chicken and onions with softened cream cheese and add green chilies. Place two spoonfuls in a tortilla and roll in an 8×8 pan. Fill the entire pan with full rolled tortillas. Pour half and half over the tortillas and top with cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 23 minutes. You can also freeze this meal for later.
French Bread Pizza
I use leftover spaghetti sauce from earlier in the week (my kids never want sauce on their seconds), cost: about $0.75
French bread can be found at the Country Hearth outlet for $0.67 per loaf, 2 loaves for all 5 of us.
About 1 cup of shredded cheese, about $0.75 to $1.
Split the UNSLICED French or Italian bread loaves in half width-wise as for a sub. Ladle on spaghetti sauce. A can of plain tomato sauce (30 or 40 cents regular price at Aldi) will substitute if need be. Top with only as much cheese as will stick to the sauce. It takes less than you would think. I get by with about 1/4 or 1/3 of a cup per half loaf. I like to throw on a little sliced onion (maybe $0.25?) but generally don’t because my kids will gripe. In the summer, any veggies on hand from the back yard are FREE and make a nice “artisanal” pizza.
Sausage/Pasta/Vegi Dish
Hi Carrie,
I know this is an old post, but I was so excited about how cheap our meal was tonight, I had to share. Two of us are gluten and dairy free, so I love these home-cooked cheap meals.
Tonight, I found a 24 oz All Natural Golden Plump Chicken for $1.99 for the package, less than half of our 4 pound bag of potatoes (it had been $1 for the 4 pound bag, so I figure just under .50 in potatoes tonight). I found a bag of fresh broccoli 12 oz for .50. I had free barbecue sauce and then a little bit of margarine. So, I figure the total came to $3 for a family of 4, not $3 each, $3 total!