Last Friday I spent a peaceful day working at home alone while Lacey played at Kindy and Hubby went off for a spot of deep sea fishing. I didn’t plan dinner because I assumed that Hubby would be bringing home fish for our tucker. I was optimistic.

I got a message just after lunch that Hubby had caught a 100kg marlin. So I started to salivate over fish and chips and continued working away.

By 5pm I started to wonder how on earth one would transport a 100kg fish home. Would we have to fillet it ourselves? Do people even eat marlin? I told Lacey we were having fish that Dadda caught for dinner and she had just one thing to say, “Eww! Are we going to eat it’s poo?” It’s always about the poo when you’re 3.

By 5:30pm I’ve tossed out any ideas of eating the huge fish and started to cook a recipe I’d been meaning to try. At 6pm Hubby walked in the door with two tiny fillets of fish. Not marlin (it was let go), but dolphin fish instead. “I’m not eating dolphin!” I exclaimed (later I learned it isn’t dolphin at all) and was grateful for whipping up the pizza. As was a hungry Hubby.

Ingredients
1 egg ($0.27)
2/3 cup flour ($0.07)
1 cup milk ($0.25)
1 cup grated cheddar or tasty cheese ($0.60)
3 slices of salami (use whatever you have: ham, tomato or pepperoni) ($1.35)

Method
♥ Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (400 degrees Fahrenheit)
♥ Grease a round pie dish (or any ovenproof dish)
♥ In a small bowl combine the egg, flour and milk and whisk until smooth. Add 1/2 of the grated cheese and stir
♥ Pour into the prepared dish and place in the oven to cook for 25-30 minutes, or until golden
♥ Take out of the oven and sprinkle with remaining cheese and your topping of choice. Mine was salami. Place the dish back in the oven and cook for 3 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and golden
♥ Cut into slices and serve with a salad

Notes:
♥ Price does not include the salad. I served mine with some rocket and balsamic dressing. Serve with a salad of your choice (which would bring it closer to the $5 mark).
♥ This meal serves 4. One serve was plenty for me. Hubby ate two because he had worked up an appetite. Lacey gobbled hers up.
♥ This is a great one for the kids to get involved in. Lacey did most of the work! Sssh!
♥ All of my ingredients were sourced from Aldi.

I didn’t make any resolutions this year. Usually I take great joy in crafting a list of things I want to change or do. But each year I get to the end of the 12 months I can rarely remember the resolutions, or I know that I haven’t met them. This year I made a manifesto instead, something to inspire me over the year 2012. You can see it here.

One of the things on my manifesto was to be thrifty. Over Christmas Day I mentioned this to my Lil Sis, because she’s the queen of thrifty. The conversation got around to how much we spend on food and we worked out it was quite a lot. I said that we’d easily spend $35 on dinner. Easy. My sister gasped and set me a challenge to do it cheaper.

I love a challenge so together we came up with a plan to try and make meals for $5. Of course we couldn’t eat $5 meals for every night of the week but if I swapped out a few meals for the $5 ones … well that’s a few handbags/shoes/holidays right there.

Note: Things not included in the $5 will be salt and pepper, and olive oil. These are basics. I’m also not going to include herbs as I’ll be growing my own herb garden, but I’ll include the price as a guide. Each meal will serve 4 people.

Here’s the first one I cooked up: Roast tomato + ricotta pasta:

Ingredients:
1 punnet of cherry tomatoes, halved {$1.33 punnet}
2 cloves of garlic, cut into fine slithers {$0.10}
1 tbs olive oil
1 tbs balsamic vinegar {$0.10}
300g penne pasta {$0.47}
1/2 x 375g tub of ricotta {$1.50}
Handful of basil, torn {around $0.60, if buying}

Method:
♥ Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.
♥ Put a pot of water on the stove and bring to the boil.
♥ Place tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and balsamic vinegar into a medium baking dish. Season with salt and pepper. Place in oven for 15 minutes {or until the tomatoes start to collapse slightly.
♥ Cook pasta in the boiling water as per the instructions on the packet {around 12 minutes} or until al dente.
♥ Once pasta is cooked, drain and place in a large serving bowl. Add the tomato and garlic mix, as well as any juices from the baking dish. Add the ricotta and basil and stir to combine.
♥ Serve among 4 bowls. Serve with half a baguette if you like {add around $0.50}.

This meal came to just $3.50 for 4 serves. Am I allowed to stick out my tongue yet and tell my Lil Sis that I knew I could? Can I?

What’s your favourite cheap meal? Do you have one you’d like to see me try?