3 Meals, 1 Night!

If I can save time and make several meals all at once, I am all for it! I like to switch it up and make several variations of the same meal at the same time so I can easily use them in one months meal plan without getting bored! Tonight was one of the nights that I wanted to not only make several meals but wanted to see just how little I could do it for!

Here was my ingredient list:
4 Italian Sausages $2.99 with coupon
1 Bag Spinach $2 on sale
2 Containers Ricotta Cheese $1.29 each with coupon
1 egg $0.14
1 bag Mozzarella Cheese $1.79 on sale
1 box of Penne $0.66 with coupon
1 box Lasagna noodles $0.76 with coupon
1 32 oz jar Marinara $1.50 on sale
1 can Petite Diced Tomatoes $0.50 on sale

Total: $12.92 for 3 meal main dishes...thats $4.31 per main dish!

To start off the meals I removed the casings off the Italian Sausages and browned them in a large pan. Once browned I added the jar of sauce and can of petite diced tomatoes and let simmer. Then boiled the Penne noodles for tonight's dinner. That easy for meal one...Penne Spaghetti!

For the last two I did two 8x8 Lasagnas that I will freeze for later meals. I like to line up all of the ingredients and get them ready before assembling so I got the sauce, spinach, mozzarella cheese, and noodles out. I then mixed the ricotta cheese with one egg and some Italian seasoning. I didn't add that into my meal cost, because we all have that in our pantry anyway!. Then I used the 8x8 GLAD Ovenware pans because they are just so easy to use! First I put a large spoonful of sauce in the bottom of both 8x8 pans. Next I broke the noodles down so I had an even layer above the sauce. After the noodles were in I spread a layer of the ricotta mix on top of the noodles followed by the spinach and mozzarella cheese. Then started again with the sauce and so on. I did 3 layers in each pan to reach the top of the 8x8.

If you did not want to do lasagna, you could easily do stuffed shells or manicotti too. Or even do on lasagna and on stuffed shells by adding just one box of noodles...thats only $0.66 more the what we originally had.

So for just 15 mins more work then I already was doing for the evenings meal, I got 2 additional nights worth of meals! Can you spare 15 mins extra one night a week? If so you can add 104 extra meals into your year of meals!