American Chop Nateeee

Nate and I have a running joke about American Chop Suey. When we first got married and lived in Jacksonville North Carolina... on Nate's PFC pay in the Marine Corps we did not have ANY money. I SO wish I knew the joys of couponing then! Looking back now it's funny!! Our rent was $450.00 a month (yes the apartment was full of cockroaches, small, smelly and I wont even get into what our neighbors were like!), we didn't have cable. We shared a cell phone, we did have Internet. Thankfully our water was included but we had to pay electricity. We NEVER ate out, and we grocery shopped every two weeks with a $60 budget!!! I was not working at first because if you have lived in this small military town you know that a 20 year old Marine wife has no chance of finding a job, and when she does it pays $6.00 an hour. Oh the joys of being young and so head over in heals in love that none of this mattered! (well the roaches mattered, that was gross!) ANYWAY... cooking dinner was always interesting. Both Nate and I come from AMAZING homes, even though both our Mom's worked they still made sure our Dad's and us kiddos had good dinners with good healthy food... so when Nate and I got married we had high expectations on what dinner should be... but no money to do that.

American Chop Suey became a staple, it was cheap and easy. Some ground beef, pasta, (maybe an onion or pepper if we had the money), and some sauce... easy peasy. HOWEVER my Mom makes it with curly pasta (you know the different colored ones that are all twisty?) and she uses manwich as her tomato base. Nate's Mom makes it with elbow macaroni and tomato sauce. Since this was something we ate a lot, we made it into a game... "Should we have American Chop Suey (my mom) or American Chop Debbie (nate's mom)?" After we got totally sick of this, we came up with American Chop Kassy... and American Chop Nateeee. My version is ground turkey, whole wheat pasta (whatever shape is on sale), peppers, onions, zucchini and tomato sauce. (this version was made up after Nate's promotion to LCpl, a deployment and a move to an apartment that cost us $650 a month... we were doing better by this time and SICK of Chop Suey and Chop Debbie!) Last night for dinner we had American Chop Nateee :)

American Chop Nateeeee (a version made up once we were out of the Marine Corps, had discovered Shaw's and coupons!)

spicy turkey or chicken sausage (the more heat the better)

Ronzoni Garden Delight Pasta

1 8oz can of tomato sauce

green pepper

onion

zucchini

Cook sausage with pepper and onion.

Cook pasta.

When they are both done throw them together with tomato sauce and zucchini. :)

For dessert I made apple crisp. I totally wing this because it's super easy.... so here is roughly how I make it.

5 cups peeled, sliced apples

2 tablespoons white sugar

1/2 cup oats

1/2 cup brown sugar

a sprinkle of cinnamon

a sprinkle of nutmeg

about a 1/4 cup of butter

put the sliced apples in a pan and coat with white sugar.

in another bowl combine everything else... saving the butter for last. Cut in the butter until everything is crumbly. Sprinkle the oat mixture on the apples and bake at 375 for a half hour or so....

I also (another thing passed on from my Mom) made home made whipped cream. I hate the way the whipped cream from a can tastes, and it's actually cheaper to buy a $2.00 pint of heavy whipping cream than it is to buy a can of whipped cream. I put just a little heavy whipping cream in my mixer.. just kind of eyeballed it because it was just for the two of us (and of course made too much!)... you start whipping it on high and add a little white sugar... just enough until it tastes sweet... then you whip until it's fluffy and looks like whipped cream! It was soooooo good on our apple crisp! :)