Trying to Eat Cheap: A Month of Dinners, Day 8

Leftover night. We never managed to eat that whole wheat mac & cheese for lunch, so I revived it (and greatly improved it I think) by turning it into a pasta bake.


I followed a recipe from one of my standby cookbooks, Laurel Glen's Quick Food. We still had about 4 cups of cooked pasta. To fix it up, I started by sautéing 1 chopped small onion in olive oil, then adding in 2 thick slices of ham cut into small squares. Then I added about a cup of cream and a cup of frozen peas and stirred everything together, simmering for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile I put the mac & cheese in a big bowl with a generous sprinkle of basil and about 1 cup of grated cheddar. The sharper the better in this dish, cheddar-wise. Mix in the ham/pea mixture and put in an oiled casserole dish. Top with about 1/2 cup more cheese and cook at 400˚ for 20 minutes. Turns into a bubbly cheesy savory meal. This is a great way to use up leftover pasta--or leftover ham.

Here's my cost breakdown:

leftovers: free
onion: .75
cheese & cream: 2.00
ham: 6.00
peas (on sale!): 1.50
Total: $10.25

Guess what--we still have leftovers.