Thrown Together Pantry Pasta Bake

So while I was watching the Blauwkamps house, I was charged (okay, i volunteered) with the task of making their meals for the week they returned. With a brand new baby, plus a five year old in tow, you don't want to be wandering around the house all jet lagged trying to figure what in the world to make at 4am.

So, Mahi and I set about to make a few meals that would be ready upon their return. Here are two of the recipes we made that were particularly easy and quick.

THROWN TOGETHER PANTRY PASTA BAKE
1/2 a box of penne
1/2 a box of those spirally noodles.
1/2 jar of Newman's pasta sauce (forget which kind)
1 cup of shredded cheese (we used a 4 cheese blend)
1lb ground beef
italian seasoning

So first, boil yourself up some water. When it's a nice and bubblin, toss in however much penne and spiral pasta you could find in your pantry. (I found about a half box of each)

While they're in the bath, take your ground beef and start cooking it up in a frying pan. Nothing fancy. Just cook it. Maybe add a little italian seasoning if you want.

Once your pasta is nice and al dente, drain it and add some pasta sauce to it until the whole mixture is a healthy redish color. (I think we used about half a jar). Now take your ground beef (drain the fat) and stir it into your pasta.

Dump the whole concoction into a casserole dish and spread it evenly. Then take about a cup of shredded cheese and cover the whole mixture with it. (If you use more than 1 cup I won't tell anybody...)

Now stick it in an oven and broil it on low until your cheesey top layer is nice and bubbly. When it's good to go, take it out and sprinkle the top with some more italian seasoning while the cheese is still nice and goopey. Voila! You hardly did any work at all!

we also made....
Egg Noodle Turkey Bake Throwdown
1 bag of egg noodles
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of celery soup
1lb pulled smoked turkey leg meat
1 small package of crushed cheez-its.
1 small can of green beans

Take pot you were already boiling water in earlier (see previous pasta bake) and get it ready to go again! Start boiling up those egg noodles, and while they're doing that, find yourself a nice big smoked turkey leg. We got our turkey legs from BJ's and they were MORE than enough for a meal, so we used the rest of them in this. Pull the thick pinkish chunks of meat off the turkey leg until you have a nice sizable pile of meat. (maybe a poundish). It should kinda look like ham.

Once the noodles are alllllllll dente, drain them and spread them in a 9 by thirteen baking dish. Pour the cream of chicken AND celery soups over the noodles. Drain a can of green beans (or a similar green vegetable from your pantry) and dump'm into the dish as well. Throw in your turkey meat and mix it all around.

At this point, you can take your inner most anger out on a small pack of cheez its. Just crush'm up real good. Open up the bag and sprinkle their pathetic remains over the top of your turkey bake. Perhaps you find yourself thinking, i wish there were more cheez its on top. Well. Get yourself another small bag and repeat the process! Coat the top until there's a healthy layer of orange over the whole thing.

Shove that sucker in the oven at 350 for about half an hour. But you should probably keep an eye on it cuz I'm not totally sure it was half an hour. Sometime before the whole thing goes up in flames, take it out using an oven mitt. You can either eat it right away (as we wanted to) or cover it in foil and store it in the fridge for an easy meal at any time of the day (as we did :( )

What's nice about these meals is that all we had to buy was meat. Pretty much everything else was just sitting around the kitchen/pantry.

Even after making these 2 dishes we still had ground beef left that we threw together with some various cans of beans to make a chili. See what you can create from goodies already in your own cupboards. Let us know if you find anything good!