Just $5 to make this meal that feeds us for 2 Days

Today I thought I would share one of my families favorite (and cheapest) belly-filling meals. It is a simple recipe. It only uses four ingredients plus whatever seasonings you want to add. Usually there's enough to feed my family of four until we're ready to pop, with enough leftovers for the next night. My grandmother used to make it when I was little and called it Italian Spaghetti. Now that I'm grown I know that there are recipes for American Goulash that are very similar to what we make. But, I continue to call it Italian Spaghetti. So here is the recipe if you'd like to try it out. Different seasonings result in different flavors, of course. The recipe is very versatile as you will see in the ingredients. I use what I have on hand in the quantities I have in hand.

Amanda's Italian Spaghetti 

Ingredients:

1. Ground beef approx 1 lb ( I tend to buy the five pound chubs at my local grocery store and then separate them into six or seven packages so it differs each time I make this) approx $3
2. Part of an onion ( I use whatever I have leftover in my fridge, usually somewhere between a quarter and a half of a small to medium yellow or white onion) approx $0.20
3. A can of diced tomatoes around $0.80
4. A box of pasta approx $1.00

Total approximate $5.00 depending on what brands you use and sales prices

Prep time depends on how long it takes you to chop the onion! Sometimes the tears slow me down. 

Cook time around twenty minutes. 

1. Brown and crumble ground beef with the onion and your seasonings. I prefer some oregano and basil (or Italian seasoning if I have it), salt, pepper, and garlic powder
2. While beef is cooking, prepare pasta according to packaging in a separate pan, drain
3. Add pasta and diced tomatoes to ground beef/onion and simmer for ten minutes  
4. Enjoy 

I was going to take pictures of the steps, but my son cooked tonight and had it done before I realized he had really started it! Bonus points for him for cooking dinner for all of us, negative points for me for not taking the pictures. My son even filled bowls and brought them to us! Here is a picture of the dish after it was cooked and mostly eaten.

yummy

This is how much was left after the four of us had eaten PLUS my husband and son both got a second bowl full!
So there's only about two bowl fulls left probably. But that is fine. It still made about eight bowls full. And when I say bowls full, I mean full to the top!