Food on Friday

Again!  I did it!  I have Food on Friday two weeks in a row.  Let the sun shine down upon us all.....

This week I have a creation to share.  This whole Pantry Challenge has really tested me.  It's so much easier just to stop at the store and pick-up whatever we want or don't have for dinner.  And then throw a few extras in the cart and $88 later I am out of there.

Using what I had, I created a recipe we dubbed, "Cheesy Taco Roni".  Pretty impressive, right?  These were actually leftovers from earlier in the week from our default meal of mexican food.
Rotel cheese dip, taco meat and macaroni.  Hence the name, Cheesy Taco Roni.  Clever.

Boil water, add macaroni.  Cook until it reaches the doneness stage your family prefers.  We like ours slightly on the crunchy side.  Drain macaroni.  Add cheese dip (originally--32 oz of velveeta, 3 cans of diced tomatoes and chilies), taco meat, and a 1/2 (as in 1/4 cup) stick of butter.  I did warm my taco meat slightly in the microwave to aid in getting it out of the container. 

How much cheese dip, you ask?  Well, I used my ladle and scooped in 3 scoops, stirred for a little bit and then added about 1/2 of a ladle.  I did not use this entire container of taco meat.  I used about 1/2 because I only had 8 oz. of macaroni.

Here is how it looked:

And after we 'plated' it:

Yes. Yes. Yes.  I know.  It's a yellow meal.  It could remind one of school lunch.  But hey, it's what we had and I didn't make a trip to the store.  We still got most of our food groups in.  Besides, warm starch with melted dairy is my favorite food group.  And yes, that is a homemade roll.  Long story.  I didn't mean to make rolls but that is what I ended up doing.  Another post, another day.

The verdict?  4 out 5 Hays Crew members really liked this meal.  It had a nice flavor.  I think that green beans and a corn muffin would have been a little better for side dishes.  I was out of flour so I had to improvise.  It's a twist on another fall back meal, cheeseburger mac.  The one who didn't like it:

No surprise.  But hey, 4 out of 5 isn't bad.

You may be curious about the blue plate I used to plate the meal.  If not stop reading here.  Otherwise, here goes.  We have been paper plate free for 3 weeks.  We thought that we could try it without paper plates for 2 weeks.  I spent the money that I would usually spend on paper plates on 6 blue plastic plates.  There have only been 2 times that I wished for paper plates and both times were on Friday nights when we were in a rush to get somewhere.  Other than that, the plastic plates have been great.  So for awhile we are going to try being paper plate free.
It is also bonus because we have less trash.

Anything we can do to be less trashy....just sayin'.