You eat bugs?

One thing I have really enjoyed the past three weeks about staying at home - the cooking. Before we even moved here to IA, I created a menu plan for our first three weeks that utilized the combined kitchens we would have to their fullest potential. This has resulted in meals such as:

• Chicken Bow Tie Pasta with garlic biscuits


• Cilantro Crusted Pork Chops with mashed potatoes and homemade bread


• Beef roast with cheesy potatoes, veggies and Watergate salad


• Chicken enchilada lasagna


• Slow cooked BBQ pork sandwiches with cottage cheese and chips


• Pork roast with mashed potatoes, veggies and jello


• Manicotti and garlic bread

And other such meals that take some time and planning.

The only problem is, we've reached the end of our first three weeks, and our pantry still looks stocked, but is running rather low.

Case in point - Sunday was potluck Sunday at church. I was going to make enchiladas. But I only had 6 tortillas left, and no sauce, and no beef, and only a little cheese. That meal started looking mighty expensive.

So I decided to use my left over ricotta, pesto, and spaghetti sauce from previous meals, steal an idea from my friend Kammie (see her lasagna roll ups here) and use lasagna noodles to create manicotti roll-ups. I only had 5 lasagna noodles. So we improvised and "Curly T's Famous Spaghetti Bake" was invented.

Basically, I cooked a bunch of spaghetti, mixed it with my ricotta, pesto and mozzarella manicotti filling, topped it with spaghetti sauce, baked it for 30 minutes and called it good.

I also took along a banana pudding pie that used sugar cookie dough as the crust.

Someone else brought a pasta dish, so that splits who eats what. But the pie was a hit.

And today I get to go grocery shopping to fill us up again.

Post Title from The Lion King