Casseroles are Budget-Friendly

With the economy in crunch, many of us are looking for ways to save on food expenses.  One of the best ways to save a buck on meals without sacrificing quality is to dig out all your favorite casserole recipes, or find some new ones.

If you think casseroles are limited to boring tuna/vegetable concoctions like your mom used to make, you should do a quick search for casserole recipes.  It’s easy to find low-fat versions of old favorites, and ideas for satisfying even the most sophisticated tastes. Here’s a vegetarian casserole from Cooking.Com that I’m going to try this week:

Baked Rigatoni with Spinach

• 1 pound of rigatoni
• 3 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 (10 oz.) package frozen spinach thawed
• 2 cups ricotta cheese
• 5 tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 tsp. grated nutmeg
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. fresh ground pepper
• 1 1/2 cups grated fontina cheese

Preheat oven to 450 F.  Cook pasta until almost done, and drain.  Pour pasta into a large (9X13) casserole dish, and toss with 1 tbsp. of oil.

Next, squeeze all excess water from spinach, and place in a food processor with ricotta cheese, 3 tbsp of the Parmesan, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.  Puree.  Then, stir in half of the fontina cheese.

Stir the pureed mixture into the pasta. Top with remaining fontina cheese, Parmesan cheese, and oil. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until top is brown and bubbly.

The casserole dish shown above is the Emeril adobe clay covered casserole dish available at Holiday Decorations Direct. Com.

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