"Chef Boyardee" (but not really)

Occasionally, you just want something fast and easy.  Earlier this week, I made pork steaks for my family, and had three 9-ounce steaks left.  Two of the steaks we ate heated up with some vegetables, which left me with one steak.  It was too little to make it the entree, and I had a few ideas but wasn't quite sure, so I just went with what sounded the tastiest. 

                                      When the kids were younger, and both my spouse and I were working, we would often eat food from a can, or a box, or delivery, or drive through.  As much as I enjoyed cooking, I think I only cooked for my family once a week.  Now that I'm divorced, and can't really afford that much drive-through, I cook most of our meals from scratch.  One of the kids' favorites from those days, though, was Chef Boyardee.  So, when I saw that Mama Rosie's (not to be confused with the actual brand name Mama Rosa) ravioli was on sale last week for $1.50 a bag, I bought some. 

First, I boiled the whole bag of ravioli (serves 3, supposedly) in my deep skillet.  While it was boiling, I finely diced the remaining pork chop.  It looked like a lot of meat when it was all chopped up.  My plan was to make a "meat sauce", and sneak the meat in.  There was so much here, though, that I put some of it in a salad.  Think, "grilled chicken salad".  Kinda like that. 

When the ravioli finished boiling, I strained them and put them back in the skillet with about 3/4 of the pork meat and a whole jar of Franceso Rinaldi spaghetti sauce.  This is my favorite brand, and comes closest to my mom's homemade sauce of childhood memory.  I always buy several jars when it's on sale, so I can't remember exactly how much it cost, but usually when it's on sale it's 3 jars for $5 or 3 jars for $4.  Only rarely can I get it for $1 a jar, and since I only had 2 jars in my cupboard, it was probably more expensive when I bought it.  I'm going to assume this was 3 jars for $5, or $1.67/jar. 

So anyway, I added the diced pork to the ravioli/sauce and also put some on the salad, which was just lettuce and pork until each member of the family added their "salad favorites": Green olives for one, banana peppers and olives for me, diced apple for another, and diced onion for the fourth.  Those who know us can guess who had what.

I had to make cupcakes last week for my daughter's class, then again this week for my oldest son's class, so the kids have been in a cupcake mood.  Since they're easy, we baked a batch from a box of "strawberry-flavored Sure Fine cake mix", topped with a homemade vanilla glaze (like donut glaze).  To make a glaze, mix about 1 Tbsp melted margarine with (again, I eyeball it, I don't measure unless I absolutely have to) roughly 1/4 cup of warm water, 1 tsp vanilla extract, and 1 cup of powdered sugar in a microwave-safe bowl.  It should be "goopy" but not "runny", similar to frosting/icing.  To get the right consistency without measuring, I put the warm water in a drinking glass, mix the vanilla, margarine, and sugar, then slowly add the water until it's right: an "icing" consistency.  Then, microwave it for just 20 seconds and stir vigorously.  Then, it should be as runny as a liquid.  Pour (or spoon) this liquid onto the cupcakes.  When it hardens, it's a glaze.  Extra frosting/glaze can be saved in the fridge in a sealed container for as much as a month.  It doesn't really go bad.  I never seem to have enough left to warrant saving; maybe a few spoonfuls of glaze left over at the end, so I usually just pitch it.  Or eat it.

I didn't start the cupcakes early this time, though,

so we didn't eat dessert until long after the table was cleared.

Total for tonight's fast and easy dinner was....$1.67 sauce, $1.50 ravioli, $1.18 for one pork steak, and $0.75 salad (since a whole head of lettuce this week was $1.39, and we used less than half, but I'm rounding up for the few olives, onion, and apple bits, and salad dressing).  Now we can't forget the $1.33 cake mix (these ones were 3 for $4) with probably $0.50 glaze, which made 24 cupcakes, making each cupcake 7.625 cents.  We ate six tonight, making tonight's dessert total 46 cents.  This brings our grand total to... $5.56.  To be perfectly honest, I was hoping this would be a "less than $5" night.  Our dinner total was probably a lot more expensive than if I had simply bought 2 or 3 cans of chef boyardee. But it was incredibly tasty, and very quick to make, and we had about 2 servings' worth of leftovers, which we can eat tomorrow.  Along with the other 18 cupcakes.