How to Cook for My Brother (and his family)

A few weeks ago my brother and sister-in-law and their three wonderful kiddos came to visit. It was an absolute blast! In preparing for their visit, I needed to come up with a big filling meal that would fit in a not-so-big budget. See, my brother has a bit of a reputation for how much he can eat. So I knew it needed to be filling. Also, I wanted it to be something that I could make ahead of time. That way I could spend the little bit of time we had with them, actually with them, and not in the kitchen. I decided to make my mother-in-law’s lasagna. Super yummy, super filling, super inexpensive!

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef

1/2 lb italian sausage

1 – 13oz tomato sauce

2 1/2 cup tomatoes

2 cloves minced garlic

1 Tb parsely

1 tsp basil

1 tsp oregano

1 – 16oz ricotta cheese

2 cups shredded mozzarella

oven ready lasagna noodles

Step 1:

Combine meats, brown in skillet, drain

Step 2:

Add next 6 ingredients, bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer 30-45 minutes

Step 3:

Layer in 9 x 13: noodles, ricotta cheese, meat sauce, mozzarella. Repeat until all ingredients are used

Step 4:

Bake 350 for 30 minutes

Now let’s talk about the ingredients. I doubled the recipe for our specific needs. I also skipped the sausage and increased the ground beef to make up for it. The garlic is minced from a jar. I used italian seasoning instead of the individual herbs. I bought everything but the lasagna noodles at Aldi. The noodles I bought at Walmart. Here’s the price breakdown:

Tomato sauce .75

Diced tomatoes 1.77

Garlic .08

Ground beef 9.22

Ricotta 3.58

Mozzarella 3.69

Noodles 1.68

Total: 20.77 for 24 servings, .87 per serving!

Please note that this is for 12 servings in each 9 x 13 pan. These servings were pretty small. Good for the kids, but the adults had at least 2 servings.