Alright so our first Dine In Challenge Meal is from Six Sister’s Stuff blog. I found some really great recipes, and there are a ton I still haven’t gone through, I’m thinking I hit the mother load with this site. Here’s the full recipe:
Six Sister’s Stuff Skinny Pizza Casserole
Ingredients
1 Box Spiral Pasta (uncooked but rinsed)- use whole wheat noodles to be even more healthy.
1 pound lean ground turkey
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 cup pepperoni
1/2 can of olives
16 ounces pizza sauce or pasta sauce
1/2 cup water
1 cup shredded lowfat mozzarella cheese
Directions
Spray crock pot with non-stick spray In a medium skillet over medium-high heat, brown the ground turkey with the onion, garlic and green bell pepper. Drain excess fat. Rinse pasta and place in the crock-pot with drained ground beef mix. Stir in olives and pepperoni. Pour Pasta sauce and 1/2 cup water over noodle mix. Stir again and make sure it is mixed well. Top with shredded Mozzarella. Cover and cook on low for 4-5 hours (no peeking).
I spend all day on Sunday doing all the prep work for about four different recipes. Which was fairly efficient since I could pull out my food processor for all the chopping. I found that the food processor chopped things a little fine for this recipe. I would have liked the veg to be a little more substantial. I also substituted the turkey for a pound of ground venison. When it came to cooking I just had to dump the contents of my bag, a box of pasta, some pasta sauce, water and mix it up. I found it was easier to mix it thoroughly in a mixing bowl then dump it into the crock pot. I topped the whole thing with mozzarella and threw it on low for around 5 hours.
The end result was a little over done, and kind of peppery. I think using a little more sauce would have improved the dryness. It was definitely hardy, but not something I think I’ll put into my regular recipe rotation. The cost was pretty reasonable, coming in at around $15. It would feed a family of four with at least two servings left over for lunch. At $2.50 a meal its a fairly reasonably priced for a family of four. Improvements I would make for next time:
- Adding another cup of tomato sauce
- Cooking for 4 hours only
- Larger pieces of veg
- A different style of pasta, maybe a nice rig
- Use a liner, I forgot to spray it with non-stick spray, and it stuck to the crock pot…a lot
On a scale of 1-10, 1 being the most retched goop I’ve ever tasted, 10 is taste bud bliss, I’d rank it as a 4, decent, but I’ve had better.
The biggest draw back of this recipe is the cook time. At 4 hours it doesn’t really work for a work week meal. The nicest part of this recipe, if you have kids, you can hide veggies pretty easy by food processing them. You may even be able to add a few carrots to the mix without your kids knowing the wiser.
A little disappointed, but I have a Six Sister’s Stuff recipe for tomorrow that looks divine, so I’m thinking a redemption is in order tomorrow.
On the menu tomorrow:
1undomesticgoddess 