Pasta Toss

I haven't updated here in a long time but here is a nice little dish I came up with off the top of my head tonight. Relatively inexpensive, very tasty and filling.

Pasta Toss:

1 cup of egg noodles per serving
1/5 pound of sausage per serving (type depends on how spicy you want the dish)
1/4 pound of fresh vegetables per serving (recommend: carrots,snap peas, green beans)
Butter/margarine
Pepper
Creamy Caeser salad dressing
Parmesan cheese

Start the vegetables cooking in butter (season the melted butter with pepper), with my recommended vegetables start the carrots first, 5 minutes later add the green beans, 5 minutes later add the peas and 5 minutes later remove from heat.

While the vegetables are cooking: cook the sauage, drain the grease, and brown the sausage. Chop the sausage into small pieces, slightly larger than peas.

While everything else is cooking, boil the egg noodles to desired tenderness. I recommend they be cooked al dente, about a minute less than recommended cooking time.

Drain the noodles and portion them out onto plates, adding a touch of butter to the noodles. Add the drained, browned sausage on top of the noodles. Add the vegetables on top of the sausage. Toss the noodles, sausage and vegetables together. Add Caeser dressing and parmesan on top, toss again to mix these in.

Cost:
Noodles, approx $0.15 per serving
Sausage: approx $0.33 per serving (you can reduce this cost by using ground turkey instead of sausage)
Vegetables: approx $0.35 per serving (this will vary depending on what is in season, price can be kept lower by using carrots as the main vegetable and the others in minimal quantities)
Dressing, Parmesan, Butter, Pepper: approx $0.15 per serving

Total cost: Approx $0.98 per serving. As mentioned the pricing can vary depending on what is in season and if you buy bulk, etc...

Alternate ingredients:
Many meats can be substituted for the sausage: bacon, diced cold cut grade turkey or ham, ground turkey, or diced pork. I'd recommend avoiding beef on this one but I think any pork, chicken or turkey meats should do fine.

Egg noodles can be substituted out with elbow noodles or any other of the thicker noodles.

Vegetables: you can keep costs down by focusing on inexpensive vegetables like carrots, using the others more as a garnish than a main ingredient. You can also spice the dish up by using peppers, onions or garlic in addition to the carrots and in place of the beans and peas.

Other dressings can be substituted for the Creamy Ceaser although I recommend staying with the creamier dressings.

Parmesan: Romano or any other dry gratable cheese can be substituted for it.

Hope you enjoy...

Tom...