Monday Dinner

No dinner post last night - I was too sick to cook so it was every man for himself.

I'm still too sick to cook tonight but I managed anyway. I made all my favorite comfort foods and looked forward to eating dinner all afternoon. Then I couldn't taste a darn thing because of this stupid cold/flu. Oh well, I'm sure it was delicious.

We had smoked sausage (grilled last week), individual potato gratins, and butter-crumb cabbage. For the gratins, I use a bag of Simply Potatoes Homestyle Slices (purchased BOGO + double coupon), so I have to increase all the other ingredients to accommodate 12 muffin-cups worth instead of 8. This isn't an exact-measurement sort of recipe, though, so it's very simple. For the butter-crumb cabbage, I use a lot more than 1/2 cup crumbs called for. I crush up 1/2 a bag of Texas Toast Garlic Butter croutons, so it probably comes out to more like 1 cup.

Totals:

.50 - smoked sausage (BOGO + double coupon)
.40 - Simply Potatoes
$1 - cheese & cream for potatoes
.40 - 1/2 large head cabbage
.25 - croutons (double coupons)
.25 - butter

$2.80 for dinner for 3, with 1 serving sausage and several servings cabbage & potatoes left over

Wednesday Dinner

Dinner tonight was smoked sausage with cabbage, sliced tomatoes, and these incredible little individual potatoes au gratin casseroles. I can't take credit for the potatoes - I'm a huge Food Network fan, and this recipe came from the winner of "The Next Food Network Star" competition show.

Here's the recipe - they are to die for:

5-Minute Individual Potato Gratins

Instead of slicing my own potatoes, I used a bag of Simply Potatoes Homestyle Slices that I picked up last time they were on sale. That was more than 2 potatoes worth, so I increased all the ingredients to accommodate 12 muffin-cups worth instead of 8. This really is a no-measure recipe - just layer the potatoes, cheese, salt & pepper in the muffin tins, then pour the cream over. They came out golden-brown and beautiful, and they tasted just as good as they looked.

For the main dish, I just shredded 1/2 a head of cabbage, quartered the sausage, and poured in 1/2 a can of chicken broth in my big covered skillet. I simmered on medium heat for about 20 minutes until the cabbage was tender. Delicious and couldn't be more simple as the sausage flavors the cabbage as it cooks.

I'm overrun with tomatoes again (I picked 9 today, plus at least 1/2 pint cherry tomatoes), so we had sliced tomatoes as a 3rd side dish.

Totals:

.50 - smoked sausage (purchased BOGO + double coupon)
.40 - 1/2 head cabbage
.30 - 1/2 can chicken broth
.75 - bag of Simply Potatoes
.75 - cheese, cream
free - tomatoes

$2.70 for dinner for 3, plus 1 serving of sausage/cabbage and 3 servings of potatoes left