Cheap Meals: Pasta Bake

I was raised in a large, close-knit, Slavic/German Midwestern family.  We ate dinner together - my mom, my sister, my grandparents and I - every single night.  Sometimes an aunt or uncle or one of our friends joined us.  The TV wasn't on, the phone was ignored if it rang, we all sat at the table and talked about our day over dinner.  There were always at least 5 people eating, and there were always leftovers. 

For this reason, I have a complete inability to cook for fewer than 10 people at a time.  It's not a proper meal to me unless the plastic containers come out afterward to be stuffed with leftovers - leftovers which are either reheated and eaten as-is in the next couple days, or which are recycled into future meals.  To the left you'll see an actual photo of one of our family meals for eight.  Elbow to elbow, loud, laughing, and yet more food in the kitchen that didn't fit on the serving dishes; we don't screw around.

We're not a wealthy family.  We're, at best, solidly middle-class, and we're headed by my grandparents who both lived through the Great Depression.  Our massive spreads of food are almost entirely "economical" if not downright cheap.

I can do fancy and expensive, but by habit I cook cheap.  Granted, the foods I considered cheap last year are downright penny-pinching with this whole coupon thing, but even without coupons you can eat well for less.


Pasta Bake
Serves 6
1lb ground beef, browned
1lb pasta (penne, shells, spirals, elbows, anything that isn't in strands like spaghetti), cooked slightly less than al dente
1 jar pasta sauce, thinned with 2 TB milk or water
1 cup shredded cheese
Salt, pepper, basil, oregano, minced garlic, other seasonings

Preheat the oven to 375*
Dump the cooked pasta into a 13x9 baking dish.  Or use a couple round casserole dishes.  Use whatever you've got as long as it's oven safe.
Pour the sauce over the pasta and mix well.
Season the ground beef to taste with salt, pepper, basil, oregano, garlic, and anything else you like.  I always put either a couple shakes of hot sauce or a minced hot pepper from the window garden in there.
Mix the ground beef in with the pasta & sauce and pat everything down evenly.
Sprinkle 1 cup of shredded cheese over top and cover with a lid or foil.
Bake for 30 minutes, uncover, and bake for another 10 minutes to brown the cheese.

Price breakdown for non-heavy coupon use:
1lb ground beef $1.99-2.19; buy on sale in large packs and divide into 1lb portions to freeze.  $2.19 is the highest I'll pay per pound for ground beef.
1lb pasta $.50-1.00; without sales or coupons you can get a pound of pasta for a buck, so I never pay higher than that.
1 jar pasta sauce $.50-2.00; it's well worth searching out sales & coupons on pasta sauce and stocking up when you can.  Some everyday cheap brands have HFCS and artificial flavorings, while the more expensive ones tend to use actual ingredients and no HFCS.
1 cup cheese $.25-1.00; buy store brand, or buy a block of cheese and shred it yourself
Seasonings: $.50
Total cost: $3.74-6.69; per serving cost $.62-1.12

Round out the meal with a package of frozen veggies ($1-1.50) or fresh veggies if $1-1.50/lb and 1/4-1/2 loaf of homemade bread ($.15-.30) for a total of $4.89-8.49, or a per serving cost of $.82-1.42

You can make the meal even cheaper if you find a better price on sausage or ground turkey.  You can also switch out ingredients; for example, using chicken thigh or drumstick meat (often in the range of $.89/lb on sale) and a jar of alfredo sauce.

This is a great place to toss random fresh veggies you've got in the refrigerator that need to be used up.  That sad little onion or the wilty-looking spinach find a new home cooked with the meat and mixed right on in.  Hey, you'd probably throw it out tomorrow anyways, right?