Beef, Bean, and Cheese Chimichangas

My mom makes the best chimichangas I’ve ever had--baked, not fried, filled with shredded beef and green chilies, served with chunky guacamole and sour cream on the side. These are not hers. But they’re a quick approximation on a Friday night, and they’re pretty darn tasty fresh from the oven or eaten cold for lunch the next day. They can even be frozen and then reheated--and they’re miles better, healthier, and cheaper than the frozen variety you’ll find at the grocery store.

Beef, Bean, and Cheese Chimichangas

Ingredients
1 lb extra lean ground beef
1 onion, diced
1 can diced green chilies
1 tsp cumin (plus more, to taste)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1 can refried beans, heated
10 flour tortillas
1/2 cup grated colby jack cheese
butter-flavored cooking spray

Instructions
Saute onion over medium heat. Add beef, chilies, cumin, salt, and garlic; cook, stirring frequently, until beef is completely cooked. Remove from heat. Spray tortilla on both sides with cooking spray; place a dollop of refried beans in the center, then a few spoonfuls of the beef mixture. Fold into a neat packet and place seam-side down on cookie sheet. Bake at 500°F for 8-10 minutes or until golden-brown and crispy, turning halfway through. Enjoy with fresh guacamole smeared on top.





Cost
0.78 1 can refried beans
1.38 1 package tortillas
2.98 1 lb 90% lean ground beef
0.78 1 can green chilis

Total: 5.92

The onion, cheese, cooking spray, minced garlic, and seasonings all came from fridge and pantry, so I'm not sure what the added cost is--less than a dollar, I'd guess. Let's say $7 total. Since we used ginormous burrito tortillas, that made 6 chimichangas (with enough filling left over for 2 burritos). Use smaller tortillas, and you can easily get 10-14 chimichangas. It works out to about a dollar a serving...so I guess it's not actually that much cheaper than the frozen version. But it's definitely better!

Hearty Vegetable and Sausage Pasta

When it comes to food, “cheap” doesn’t have to mean “tasteless,” and it certainly doesn’t have to mean “unhealthy.” Audrey and I make a variation on this pasta dish at least once or twice a month. It’s nutritious and delicious, and one recipe can easily feed two people for three or four meals. It’s also astonishingly quick--less than 30 minutes from fridge to table!

One of the things I love about this recipe is how versatile it is. You never have to make it with the same vegetables twice! Use those gorgeous speckled eggplants from the farmer’s market or that elderly-but-still-firm zucchini at the back of the fridge. Leftover roasted carrots and cauliflower from last night’s dinner, chopped up small, add some excitement in flavor, color, and texture. Substitute Italian sausage for the chicken sausages, or use regular ground beef instead. (Just make sure to precook the meat if it isn’t already.) Jazz it up and enjoy!

Hearty Vegetable and Sausage Pasta

Ingredients

1 medium zucchini, thinly sliced
1 medium bell pepper, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
Other vegetables as desired (yellow summer squash, eggplant, carrots, etc)
2 sundried tomato chicken sausages, precooked, sliced
1 jar good pasta sauce (we like Bertolli’s and Classico, usually the “Tomato and Basil” variety)
Dried oregano
Dried basil
Fresh basil, to garnish
Fresh parmesan
1/3 box whole-wheat pasta

Instructions

In a large saucepan, saute the sausage. (You can use a little olive oil to keep the sausage from sticking to the pan, if you like, but since you’ll be adding liquid later I generally don’t bother). Add vegetables and saute until soft. Pour in pasta sauce; season to taste with dried oregano and basil. Let simmer while you prepare the pasta according to package directions--this will help the sauce thicken and develop the flavors. Top with fresh shaved parmesan and serve with crusty baguettes or hot garlic bread (look forward to a baguette recipe coming next week!)


Cost
$0.50 1 zucchini
$1.00 1 purple bell pepper (or save even more by going green!)
$2.08 1 jar Classico pasta sauce
$2.19 2 sundried tomato chicken sausages
$0.33 1/3 box Barilla whole-grain rotini

$6.10 Total

This total is a little deceptive, because I didn’t calculate the cost of the dried oregano or basil (pantry staples), the fresh basil (from a $3 plant on our back porch which I’ve had for weeks and have used for countless meals), the carrots and cauliflower (left over from dinner a few days ago) or the fresh parmesan (about $5 for a large triangle which we’ve kept for months and used for even more meals; like many hard cheeses, Parmesan keeps a very long time!). The bread was homemade; I’ll have both the recipe and the cost breakdown up next week.

Keep in mind that this recipe not only served the two of us, but it did so for dinner the first night, Audrey’s lunch the next day, Audrey’s dinner the day after that, and dinner for both of us a few days later. That works out to about 6 servings, which means this costs just a little more than $1 per serving. Pretty good when your dinner budget’s only $20 a week!