In a REAL hurry to get dinner on the table? Dry pasta in the baking dish, jar of sauce then add the same amount of water as sauce to the pan, give it a stir, add the rest of the ingredients as normal. The pasta cooks in the oven, no getting another pan dirty to boil it in first. (No dishwasher here, so I’m all about streamlining the cleanup!)

Essentially you’re making your own cheap version of the 3.00 a jar “Baking Sauces”. Does the exact same thing, at a third of the price.

Thank you for adding in the vegetarian comment, since I was thinking in my head, “Take out the $1 for meat and it’s definitely under $3.” But you already covered that.

Can’t wait to sift through the archives and check it out – looks like a lot of fun!

Thanks.

bradley – i made this in the dead heat of a summer day which was a mistake. yeah, probably a good dish for Fall instead!

rosemary – yep!

pdempsey – I think i made a mistake on the cheese. On the flip side, I didn’t actually use a cup of cheese – more like 1/2. I don’t mean the pricing to be taken literally. Its very difficult to approximate the recipe costs, because sometimes you only use 1/2, 1/4 or even 1/64 of a package of something (pricing 1 tbsp of olive oil is not very fun). So, it ends up some things are more expensive than what is listed and some things are cheaper. I find it averages out – so I don’t worry too much. Also, this casserole fed me for three meals – if we’re going to get exact then I guess for a meal it’s 1/3 of the cost. =)

Good basic recipe. We just dealt with college fees and textbooks for our son, and needless to say, paying utilities and grocery bills is a real challenge at the moment. Your cheap eats ideas are great (I was happy to see chicken adobo in your archives… that’s been one of our family staples for years… and a great crockpot dish). Feeding a 6’4″ hubby and an ever-growing 19 year old is a real challenge.

I’d like to contribute a super cheap lunch: Three packages of ramen noodles (10-15 cents per package) cooked with a bag of frozen mixed stir-fry veggies tossed in. Toss in any leftover meat you might have lurking in your fridge. Or scramble a few eggs and toss them in. Less than $3 and you can divide it into three or four decent servings.