Spaghetti Pie

You might remember that last week's menu included Spaghetti Pie. Since my oven is on the fritz (major disappointment!), I prepared the pie and then brought it to our friends' house to bake and share. (Beth made the salad. Isn't it pretty?) Here's my recipe:

Spaghetti Pie

8-10 oz. rice noodles, cooked
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup ricotta cheese
Parmesan cheese, optional
1/2 lb. ground turkey/hamburger
chopped onion
12 oz. spaghetti sauce
8 oz. shredded mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Brown meat and onions. Set aside.
Mix the cooked noodles, butter, and eggs together and spread in the bottom of a pie plate.
Spread the ricotta over the noodle "crust" and sprinkle parmesan over it.
Mix spaghetti sauce with the meat and onions and spread over the ricotta and parmesan.
Bake uncovered for 30 minutes.
Top with mozzarella cheese and bake 5 more minutes, or until cheese is melted.


Let me know if you've made spaghetti pie before and how your recipe differs from mine. We can learn from each other!

Weekly Menu - Leftovers

I've decided not to go grocery shopping this week. Well, at least not for dinner stuff. I think I will pick up some fruit and a few things for lunch, but this week's grocery bill should hopefully be small.

Tim helped me put together a dinner menu with whatever was left in our cupboards. Here's what we came up with:

• Sunday dinner - Baked potatoes with yummy toppings
• Monday - Split pea soup
• Tuesday - Burritos with homemade refried beans
• Wednesday - Breakfast (pancakes, eggs, turkey bacon)
• Thursday - Chicken soup
• Friday - Pizza

On Saturday we'll go grocery shopping after breakfast so we'll be set for next week. Yeah for saving almost a week's worth of grocery money!

Check out OrgJunkie for more menu ideas.

Hey, also check out Cooking, Illustrated for more gluten free menus!

Oh, Yummm

Yesterday, I took my own advise and we made this for dinner:

We cooked all naturally gluten free foods: chicken, corn, and potatoes. Tim cooked the chicken and the tater-tots (in foil) on the grill. Half way through grilling, he added barbecue sauce to the chicken breasts. Oh, yes; it was bar-be-licious!

A "simple" dinner like this is easy to prepare and is so delicious, there's no need to complicate it!

CVS Trip, again, with the Month of May Deals, WooHoo!

I know I just posted about CVS, but I'm so PUMPED about the May deals that I got last night!

Here's how it went down:

Transaction #1
2 Tums QuikPaks - $9.38
1 Adidas deodorant - $4.99
1 Chapstick Naturals - $2.99

$3/$15 CVS coupon
$4.49 off of Adidas
$7.98 in Extra Care Bucks (ECBs)

Total out of pocket = $2.34
Total ECBs earned = $15.37

Transaction #2
2 Post-It Flags - $4.00
2 Adidas deodorant - $9.98
1 Chapstick Naturals - $2.99

$3/$15 CVS coupon
2 $4.49 off of Adidas
$4.00 in ECBs

Total out of pocket = $1.90
Total ECBs earned = $10.98

Transaction #3
2 Colgate 360 toothbrushes - 7.98
3 Colgate toothbrushes on clearance - $2.00
1 Orapik Traveler - $2.79
2 Aquafresh Advance toothpastes - $5.98
2 Duracell 4 packs - $9.58

$3/$15 CVS coupon
2 $1.00 off Aquafresh
1 $1.00 off Colgate
2 $0.75 off Duracell
$17.99 in ECBs

Total out of pocket = $3.35
Total ECBs earned = $16.75

So I walked in with $22.98 total in ECBs, walked out with $41.11 in ECBs, and paid $7.59 out of pocket. Not too shabby, if I say so myself! I should say that I rarely do multiple transactions, but with the coupons I had, it just worked better that way. I luckily had a very helpful and obliging cashier.

As usual, a big "Thanks" to Crystal at Money Saving Mom for putting together such great deals!


Seriously, I will get back to talking about eating gluten free, but this blog is about eating gluten free cheaply, so I think this post can slide by :)

Gluten Free Friday, Day 3

Continuing with my Gluten Free Basics series, today I'm going to post about Cooking from Scratch.

Eating gluten free is simple if you can cook some things from scratch. Of course, many of us do not feel entirely proficient in the kitchen (myself included). Don't let that stop you from being adventurous! Don't be afraid to try new things. When you make something from scratch, you know exactly what's in it and you can be sure that it truly is gluten free.

You can read here about my first experience cooking with dried beans. I was a little nervous about trying it, but since it turned out fine, I'm much more confident now when I use dried beans. I feel a good sense of accomplishment that comes only from tackling something that's "scary," and realizing it's really easy! And, I have a renewed zeal for experimenting in the kitchen!

Use foods that are naturally gluten free; there are a ton of them. Cook with rice, beans, meats, fruits, and veggies. When you combine these foods, you've got a meal so great, you won't even notice it's gluten free. It's just a "normal" meal.

Rice noodles are a staple in our house. We have "spaghetti" usually at least every other week, and we have rice noodles for breakfast every Thursday morning. We buy our rice noodles at the local Oriental foods store called Nana's Oriental Market. It's much cheaper than the rice noodles at our grocery store (Hy-Vee). We'll sometimes get rice pasta from the health food section of Hy-Vee for a macaroni hotdish or something, but we generally stick with oriental rice noodles.

So don't be timid in the kitchen; try new things in your gluten-free-cooking-from-scratch journey!

CVS Trip

I stopped by CVS on my way home from work today. Here's what I got:

The Post-It's were on sale for $2.00 each and the tooth brushes were on sale for $3.99 each.

I used a few coupons:

• $3 off of $15 CVS purchase
• $1 off Colgate tooth brush
• 2 $3 off of 2 Post-It products

I then used $4 in Extra Care Bucks.

I ended up paying $4.75 out of pocket, but I got $12.98 in Extra Care Bucks back to use next time I go to CVS.

Check out Money Saving Mom for CVS deals and other great deals.