WFMW: Two Dinners in One

Well, our late bell peppers from our garden are finally producing, and on Saturday I picked the first two to make this Baked Stuffed Peppers recipe.  I knew that we're going to soon have a bumper crop of peppers, and I thought this woudl be a good way to use some.

The recipe was very simple to make; the only "extra" step was parboiling the peppers before baking them.  I thought the taste was very good too, especially with the fresh peppers.  My husband, however, was not crazy about them (although I think this had more to do with his personal taste preferences than with the recipe.)

Approximate cost of the meal:

Filling (total)

1 lb. ground beef  - $1.99

can diced tomatoes - $.65

onion - $.25
1 cup rice - $.50
spices, etc. - $.30
= $3.69

Since the peppers were free and we used only about 1/3 of the filling for that meal, total cost for the stuffed peppers meal for two was just $1.23!

Since we only had two medium-sized peppers, I had a ton of filling left over.  I thought of freezing it to make the recipe again, but since Michael didn't love it, I tried to think of an alternative.  My solution: a makeshift chili!  To the prepared filling I added:

- a quart-sized bag of frozen black beans - $.30

- a Tablespoon or two of chili powder - $.10

- a teaspoon or two of cumin - $.10

- a quarter to a half cup of salsa - $.25 (got the jar for $1 on clearance)

- three of our fresh jalepenos, diced - free

Then I just simmered it for 20 minutes or so, and - voila - chili!  The chili powder and cumin sufficiently modfied the flavors of the cinnamon and allspice, yet the original spices still added a nice exotic touch to the chili.

Total cost for the chili (using the other 2/3 of the filling plus the additions) - $3.21 (fed 4)

See more ideas at Works for Me Wednesday!