tater tot casserole

After someone brought over a super spicy tater tot casserole for us when our 4th child was born, I decided to seek out something a little more bland.  I found this recipe online http://life-as-a-lofthouse.blogspot.com/2010/10/tater-tot-casserole.html    It's actually michelle duggar's recipe, and if anyone needs something that will feed a lot of people for a minimum amout of money, it's her.  I love it because the ingredients are simple, but it is so creamy and good and not overly onion-y.  Don't forget to stock up on your cream of mushroom and cream of chicken during the holidays (christmas, easter, and thanksgiving).

Tator Tot Casserole

Recipe by: Michelle Duggar

1 lb Ground Turkey (we just use whatever ground meat is on manager's special.  I got some ground chicken (cage free no less) for $1.87 a pound the other day!  It was kind of a strange color for ground meat (more white than brown) but my kids actually preferred it over beef)

1 (2 lb) bag frozen Tater Tots

1 can Evaporated Milk

1 can Cream of Mushroom soup

1 can Cream of Chicken soup

2 cups shredded Cheddar Cheese (optional...but not really.  It's OOOH so good)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and then spray a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray, set aside.

In a large skillet over medium high heat, brown your ground turkey until thoroughly cooked. Drain the grease, and then pour the turkey into the baking dish. Then pour your bag of tater tots on top of the turkey, spreading them out evenly.

In a medium bowl, mix your soups and evaporated milk all together. After well mixed, pour the mixture evenly over the tater tots. Pop it in the oven, uncovered, and bake for 55 minutes! If using cheese, sprinkle on cheese after 45 minutes of baking, and then put back in oven for another 10-15 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

Parmesan potatoes

Back when we had more money, we used to frequent fast food restaurants a little more often than I'd like to admit.  When we moved into our new home, we did some miscalculations and ended up having to cut $800 out of our spending.   We paid off our car so we didn't have two car payments...that took up $200, but we still had to cut out $600.  We had never really paid attention to what we were spending.  We just tried to not spend too much, but it was always everything we had.   So, the first step was to obviously keep track of what we were spending.  It was really eye opening.  We were spending a ridiculous amount of money on food.   I was working and my husband was going through graduate school, so we did go out to eat much more frequently than we should have.  We purchased a lot of convenience foods at the store because we didn't have a lot of time to prepare meals.  Now that I'm not working anymore, I have more time to think through my meals and spend more time planning my shopping trips.

First issue with my children was to wean them from french fries.  Seeing as potatoes are just $3.50 for a ten pound bag, it seemed to just make sense to make my own.  While I was thinking it through, I decided to look for a more healthy version and find something baked instead of fried.  This is a recipe that my mom gave us:

Parmesan potatoes:

5-6 potatoes
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt

Peel potatoes and cut them into french fries.  I usually do this by cutting the potatoes in thirds length-wise and then cutting each third into strips.  You could actually even leave the skins on to add more nutritional value.  Rinse the potatoes and pat dry with a paper towel. 

Put the Parmesan cheese, flour and salt in a brown lunch bag and give it a shake or two.  Add the potatoes a handful or two at a time and shake until they are coated with the Parmesan mixture.

Arrange the potatoes on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  We serve this with ketchup.  We never intended these to be a full meal, but my kids devour them  and are often too full for anything else.  My husband and I don't eat as many, so we add a frozen vegetable with it or sometimes make smoothies to make it more filling. 

This recipe takes so few potatoes that in a couple of days, you can use the rest of the ones in the bag for potato soup and then in a few more days have baked potatoes.

My five year old's favorite meal

Several people have suggested that I put pictures up. I've hesitated because I don't have a fancy camera and I'm not a great photographer and I don't have fancy dishes. I don't think I have a full set of matching dishes. BUT...this blog is called dinners for poor people, right? So here goes...

While most 5-year olds are obsessed with mac 'n cheese and hot dogs, mine is obsessed with what she calls "corn, rice, and beans."  We call it tostadas.  There are so many different ways to serve this, that we have it a lot.  Yesterday we had tacos.  I don't know about you, but we always have left over lettuce, tomatoes and shells after we have tacos and we never really end up using them unless we plan for it.  I HATE throwing food away, so I always try to think of at least 3 meals that use these ingredients so we don't end up letting it spoil in the fridge. 

Here's the basic recipe:

1 cup uncooked rice
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can corn, rinsed.

Cook the rice according to package directions.  Stir in corn and beans. 
That's it.  What I love even more about the meal is that it provides you with all of the nutrients necessary to sustain life.  If this were the only thing you could afford to feed your family every day, you could rest assured that their health wasn't being damaged. 

There are a couple of things you can add to this to make it a little more tasty.  You can add sour cream and or salsa or BBQ sauce.  Just whatever you have on hand.  We always top it with shredded cheddar, though.  We like cheese.  And today, because we had leftover perishables from the night before, we added tomatoes and lettuce and taco shells.  My five year old broke the shells into chips and used them as spoons.  Kind of like nachos.  Sometimes we make homemade tortillas, spray them with cooking spray on both sides, and then toast them in the oven.  Or we just wrap all of the ingredients into a tortilla shell. 

Lazy wife's lasagna

When we were first married, I decided to do something "gourmet" and make lasagna.  It turned out fine, but it took FOREVER!!!  I'm not even a big fan of tomato sauce, so I really hated that I spent so much time making something that wasn't fantastic.  I was sure pleased, then, when I found this super easy version (that is actually called spaghetti pie).  It's not really lasagna, but you still get the "noodles" and the mozzarella cheese and the tomato sauce and it's actually really good.  We used to make this recipe a lot, but haven't in the last 3-4 years.  We made it tonight, and weren't quite sure how our kids would react.  Thankfully, my picky 7 year old had 3 helpings and asked if we could have it again tomorrow.  Again, this recipe was really cheap for us because we already had most of the ingredients on hand.  I used classico pasta sauce because it was on sale for $1.79 at Kroger this week (still is, actually) and the classico website has a coupon for a dollar off.  I also came across some cottage cheese that was deeply discounted as a manager's special, but the expiration date wasn't for a few more weeks.  Those were the only two things that I had to purchase to make this.  Super cheap.  The recipe calls for the entire bottle of pasta sauce, but we don't put that much on because we're not big fans of tomatoes (except for my husband....I just make sure to load up the pasta sauce on his side of the dish). 

2-3 cups hot, cooked, drained spaghetti
2 Tablespoons margarine
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
2 well-beaten eggs
ready-to-eat spaghetti sauce
1 cup each: cottage cheese and shredded mozzarella cheese

Mix hot spaghetti, margarine, Parmesan cheese and eggs  Pour into buttered 9x13 inch pan.  Top with cottage cheese.  Fill pan with sauce (or not, if you're like me).  Sprinkle with mozzarella.  Bake 20 minutes, 350 degrees.  Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

It would also be really easy to add some ground beef to this if you'd like to add some meat to the recipe.

Cheesy Stuffed Shells

Here is the Cheesy Stuffed Shells recipe that I referred to in my last post.  I originally got this recipe from the Kraft food and family magazine, Spring 2006 issue.  These are so good.  Last time we made them my husband suggested that I make him a pan all for himself.  We DO qualify for the WIC program.  Any family of six that makes less than $54,000 per year qualifies (and has children under 5).  This program gives our family free cheese and milk and eggs.  So I don't hesitate to use recipes with cheese.  If you don't qualify for this program, Target often has coupons at coupons.target.com for $1/2 of their store brand cheeses.  I usually use these if I need more cheese during the month than WIC allows. 

1 container (16 oz.) low fat cottage cheese
1 pkg. (10 oz.) frozen chopped spinach, thawed, well drained
1 cup mozzarella cheese, divided
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
20 jumbo pasta shells, cooked, drained
1 jar (26 oz.) spaghetti sauce
1 large tomato, chopped

(We are not big tomato eaters in my family, so I often omit the tomato and don't use the whole jar of spaghetti sauce). 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Mix cottage cheese, spinach, 1/2 cup of the mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese and Italian seasoning until well blended.  Spoon 1 heaping Tbsp. of the cheese mixture evenly into each pasta shell.

Combine spaghetti sauce and tomatoes; spoon half of the sauce mixture into 13x9 - inch baking dish.  Place shells, filled sides up, in baking dish.  Spoon remaining sauce mixture over shells (again, my kids don't really like the sauce, so I put the sauce in half of the pan and don't put nearly.  I would prefer that they get all of the nutrients out of the tomato, but I'm just happy that they're eating spinach).  Cover with foil.

Bake 25 minutes or until heated through.  Uncover; top with remaining 1/2cup  mozzarella cheese.  Bake, uncovered, an additional 2 min. or until cheese is melted.