I had bought a box of Archer Farms Tuscan pasta salad at Target. The instructions are easy to follow: dump the pasta in boiling, slightly salted water (which I also flavored with some garlic powder). Mix olive oil with the pesto packet to make the dressing. If you want a creamier dressing, replace some of the olive oil with mayonnaise.
Now, this works as a side, not as the main dish - maybe for a starving college student like myself, but even I want more sometimes. To turn this into a generous entree and then leftovers (the gift that keeps on giving), grill or fry two or three chicken breasts. I marinated mine in the Chardonnay and Herb concoction I have referred to so lovingly in the past. I cut my chicken in cubes (or you can do strips) and mixed it with the pasta to make for a fuller meal, most of which ended up in Tupperware to feed me for another week. Cooking a large meal and storing it for sporadic consumption during the week is a good way to save money, and you can make another kind of pasta or meal and store it in Tupperware so you can mix it up during the week and not get bored on the same thing. Pasta is just practical and preserves well.
For handy snacks, how about making your own brownies? Or you
know, how about Pillsbury puts the whole thing together and you take credit for it for sticking it in the oven? I tried the cheesecake swirl brownie mix - nothing crazy. You mix the brownie batter and separately you mix the cheesecake topping. I decided to make these as cupcakes and not brownies. The ending product looked like Pangaeas in their chocolate oceans. To my roommate, a cupcake's cheesecake topping looked like a duck. These things are like the inkblot test.My roommate crazy.
This week's groceries
- Archer Farms pasta salad - $3.99
- Old Orchard apple juice - $1.00
- Gold n' Plump chicken breasts (x6) - $11.49
- Pillsbury cheesecake brownie mix - $1.37
- Sparboe Farm eggs - $0.87
- Market Pantry milk - $1.69
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