Sense to Save

First menu for 2008 (Dec. 31-Jan. 4) $19.58

Note:  This last week’s menu, during the time the Menu Plan Monday was down.  It includes a baked ziti recipe that I would love to share.

Time for another meal plan from Kacie’s kitchen! Here we go:

Monday:

Since it’s New Year’s Eve and my husband and I will be celebrating it at home, we’re going to eat some snack-type food for dinner. Nothing like eating junk to ring in a new year :)

-Toasted ravioli and marinara sauce ($3 I think, I can’t remember, whoops).

-Chicken fingers and ranch dip ($2.50)

-Chips ($1) and salsa ($1.50) [I don't think we'll eat all of it, but that's what the packages cost]

-Maybe some homemade cookies…we’ll see!

Total (without cookies) $8 (if we eat an entire bag of chips, which we won’t, but whatever)

Tuesday:

Salmon patties ($1.59), corn ($0.39) and twice-baked potatoes ($0.30) for a total of $2.28

Wednesday:

Grilled cheese sandwiches (about $0.20 for the bread; $0.25? for the cheese), leftover chicken and noodles frozen from awhile back $0.45

Thursday:

Baked ziti, garlic toast

While at my mother-in-law’s house before Christmas, I made the best batch of baked ziti I’ve ever made (I don’t know if this is technically ziti, but it’s what I’m calling it). My husband loved it so much, he took a picture. He wanted me to write down exactly what I did, so it will be the same the next time I made it.

-1.5 lbs. ground beef ($2)

-2 jars marinara sauce (I used two Prego jars for this one, wish I could remember the specific flavors!) ($2)

- onion ($0.10)

- garlic

- whatever seasonings you like to add to marinara sauce (for me, I like to add basil, garlic powder, and ground pepper)

- box (16 oz.) ziti-style pasta (I used mostacolli rigati) ($1)

- about 1 cup of Parmesan cheese (? $0.50?)

- 16 oz. container of cottage cheese (I used the fat-free variety) ($1)

- half to whole stick of butter (depending on just how fattening you want this recipe to be) $0.25)

- 8 oz. package of sliced or shredded provolone cheese ($2)

Total: $8.85

The day before I planned on serving the dish, I cooked the meat sauce. I sauted a chopped onion and some garlic, and browned the ground beef. I added the marinara sauce and took it to a boil, and then let it simmer for about an hour. I think cooking this sauce in advance and letting it meld overnight really helped the flavor.

The next day, I boiled a pot of salted water, and cooked the pasta. Once it was done, I drained it and stirred in a stick of butter. Healthy, I know. But, I think it added tremendous flavor to the overall dish, since previously, the noodles didn’t have great flavor.

After stirring in the butter, I added the Parmesean. It started getting really cheesy and delicious at that point. I added the cottage cheese next. I think if you wanted, you could add some shredded provolone at this point. Mmm. Cheese.

Ok, now for the layering.

Put a good several spoonfuls of the marinara sauce into the bottom of a 9×13 sturdy pan. You’ll want a thick enough layer where you can’t see the bottom of the pan, and then a little extra. Maybe .5 inch? Dunno.

On top, put about half of your cheesy, buttery noodles.

Add a bunch of the marinara sauce to the top of that, maybe slightly more than half of your remaining sauce.

Put the rest of your noodles on top of that.

Add the slices or sprinkles of Provalone, and top it off with the rest of your marinara sauce.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes to one hour. You might put a larger cookie sheet underneath, in case your pan overflows a little and drips (mine did).

It takes awhile to make, and several steps, but it really is delicious, and will feed a lot of people. It’ll make good leftovers for whenever you want to eat it next, as well.

Friday

Leftovers!

Be sure to visit Laura for more menus.

My savings sidebar

A few readers have asked me about how I do my drugstore savings sidebar (found in the left side of my blog).

It’s just a simple table, and I update it each time I make a purchase at any of the three stores.

When I was blogging at Blogger, it was much easier to create and use a table. Now that I’m using WordPress, the table is html.

That’s it!

Buh-bye, extra care bucks!

I just burned all $9.97 of my CVS extra care bucks. As in, I spent them all without getting extra care bucks back.

I’m totally fine with that.

My husband and I were in CVS today, there to buy a few items we needed. I was out of vitamins, he wanted some mints, I wanted a newspaper, and baby oil (side note: who knew that baby oil, when applied post-shower but before drying off can be such a great moisturizer? Oh, my mother-in-law did. Good tip!).

I bought CVS brand multivitamins for $5.99. This week, CVS brand items are buy one, get one 50 percent off. So, I bought two bottles that should last four months.  In case you’re curious, I buy the children’s chewable kind. I don’t like swallowing pills, and I like the taste of the chewables. Win-win.

I didn’t have a $2 off $10 coupon with me, but it wasn’t worth the drive home to print one off.

Out of pocket, I spent about $5. No more extra care bucks for me.

But ya know what? I’m a-OK with that.

I didn’t need any of the products that generate extra care bucks this week (and there aren’t many). I didn’t want to buy a product simply so I could get the ECBs.

However, I DID need to buy some products for our home. It made sense to just go ahead and get them, saving about $10 off my total order thanks to the ECB.

I just want my CVS-ing to work for me, ya know?

I’ll likely still go to CVS, but probably not each week now. We have a well-stocked supply bin, and we won’t be running out of essentials any time soon. I’ll gradually stock it as needed, but working the deals in October was essentially all I needed to do to get a good start on my toiletry supplies.