Tuesday, September 29

What's for Dinner at Our House Tonight

Lasagna is one of my favorite things to make for the family or for friends, especially when I'm going to be doing a Pampered Chef show or we have a busy afternoon planned. I can throw it together whenever I have a spare 15 minutes in the morning and it's a satisfying meal, WITH lots leftover.

It's usually pretty spendy for one meal according to our standards - probably among the most expensive dishes I make - at least on a regular basis, but lots of leftovers usually means I can divide the cost over 2 meals. This week, however, I reduced some quantities to use only ingredients I already had and avoid a grocery store run, and combined with sale prices ended up with a pretty good deal on my lasagna.

Lasagna, one pan, $5.89
(Recipe from the back of the pasta box)

1 box Barilla flat no-boil lasagne noodles ($1.72)
2 eggs (1 dozen for .89 = 2 eggs, .14)
15 oz Michigan Brand cottage cheese (you have to try this kind!!) on sale for $1.50
(substituted for the called-for ricotta and it is a small curd, low whey variety - excellent!)
2 cups (down from 4) shredded italian blend cheese $1.25
1 can (down from 2) Hunt's Garlic & Onion spaghetti sauce plus 3/4 c water .98
1/2 cup (2 oz) grated Parmesan cheese (.30 - Aldi)
1 lb ground beef (FREE - a gift to us!)

This makes the best lasagna I have ever made, and I'm telling you it is the sauce. I am disappointed that Hunt's recently changed their recipe to include HFCS, but I must say we like the taste enough to continue to buy it. This is the one item I'm willing to purchase with HFCS in it since good spaghetti sauce flavor is hard to find, and it's one meal every few weeks.

I won't go over the directions as they are printed on the box. I've also divided the recipe up in 2 8 x 8 pans and frozen it, uncooked, for later. We usually still have plenty left over for lunch the next day!

Has anyone found any no-boil whole wheat lasagne noodles? I'd be SO interested in giving those a try!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Sounds delicious! So funny the differences between households. I LOVE lasagna but Chloe and Clive don't at all. So, it rarely gets made around here! I'm hoping as they get older I can pull it out again. :) Perfect weather tonight for a lasagna. I'm impressed that your recipe only takes 15 minutes -- mine takes much longer.

Shelldell said...

Sounds yummy.

Autum said...

Where did you find the cottage cheese for that price? It is my favorite and that is a really, really good price.

I may have to try that since we love lasagna here as well and don't make it frequently because it is expensive, like you said.