As I talked about in my last post, my twins have got me in a DIY mood. But this DIY mood doesn’t just deal with crafts and projects, it has grown to include food! Yes, good ol’ dinner experiments.

Now wait, before you get that grossed out look thinking about all the gross things you have seen or heard pregnant women eat. I’m not there yet. I need my food to taste normal. Peanut butter does not go on chicken and so on. I only want to eat normal foods at the moment so I’m sure this is a post you should enjoy.

One thing about me is that I LOVE to eat out. I’m not talking about fast food, I’m talking sit down in a restaurant and order. One of my favorite places to eat is Applebees and with offers like 2 for 20 or the new 2 for 24 menu, it’s hard to pass up.

Last night in the grocery store I came up with awesome idea, in my opinion. My husband and I like to order from the new 2 for 24 menu and get the penne pasta with steak on top. It’s so good. If you haven’t tried it, you should. It doesn’t seem that difficult to make. Just alfredo, penne noodles, spinach, tomatoes and steak right?!

Well last night I tested it out and took to the kitchen.

The ingredients were pretty simple. We caught some steaks on sale, buy 1 get 1 free with the alfredo sauce, noodles, canned diced tomatoes, and some spinach.

The first thing I did was season the steaks. I already had the seasonings. I use seasoning salt for everything and I love the seasonings from McCormick Grill Mates!

I’m really into fresh food lately. So instead of picking up a can of spinach, I thought it might be nice to just make it myself. I’m not a fancy spinach maker so I just wash the leaves throw them in a pot halfway filled with water and sit on a burner turned to Med heat with some salt for flavoring.

And of course the noodles had to be made as well. I wanted everything to be finished at the same time so I made sure I started on the noodles first thing. It’s pretty simple. I put hot water in a pot and put it on a burner at medium heat. Once it starts to boil I add some salt and oil so the noodles don’t stick together and then pour in the noodles.

If we had a grill I might have made the steaks on a grill but since we didn’t I made them on top of the stove. They were pretty thin so I cooked six of them in about 20 minutes. You can use either olive oil or vegetable oil. I personally like to use olive oil but we ran out so vegetable oil worked just fine.

While the other ingredients (noodles and spinach) were finishing up I took the steak and cut it up into pieces and drained the diced tomatoes. I will admit that all the steak did not make it into the dish. I ate 2 or 3 small pieces along with the hubs and even our cute little puppy baby had a small piece.

ANd Boom!!! After everything was complete I mixed everything together and come out with something that I think could beat Applebees’ entrée.

It was a success and everyone (the hubs and I) loved it! In fact, I have some today for lunch and am just counting down the hours that I can eat it!!

This meal cost only $12 (not including seasonings, I already had those in my kitchen) to create thanks to grocery store sales and that wonderful MVP card. Sure beats out a $35 bill at Applebees!

Have any fun recipes to share? I would love to hear about them and try them out!!

Happy Tuesday,

C.B.