Here's another nifty way to stretch the meat dollars in our budget:

you can usually find ground turkey by the pound in the frozen food section- sometimes I really have to look; Wacky Zacky is usually the cheapest option at $1.00/lb. Since ground turkey is next to tasteless either spice it up in the browning process by adding a few dashes of Mrs Dash or seasoned salt... or you can brown it with one roll of sausage (regular bulk pork) and split the results. Take one half of the mixture and use it in place of a pound of ground beef. This is especially tasty in italian dishes.

I really miss the old days when we could get ground beef for 99 cents a pound or even $1.50 a pound. This solution has decent flavor and is about as healthy for you as the ground beef- since the turkey is almost fat free and the sausage is fat full. I'm not a scientist so I don't know the actual facts and figures.

Tonights menu: Pizza pasta

1 12oz bag of penne pasta that I got for 80 cents
1 jar tomato sauce at .79
about half the bag of pepperoni (full price, about 3.99)
1 15oz tub of ricotta cheese -2.99
1 pound of the sausage-turkey mixture

cook the pasta, throw in with the rest of the stuff and bake at 350 for about half an hour or so. This is the dish that makes the Boy eat three bowls and then tell me that I cook too good because he has to work to meet standards.