Dinner from a dollar store

I've been haunting my local dollar store more lately.  They now have a freezer and cooler section in the back.  You'd be amazed at what they stock in there.  I have gotten everything from tater tots to thin-cut rib eyes.  Frozen berries, frozen lemonade, frozen peas, and well, whatever else comes off the truck that week.  It seems to change every week too, I'm guessing these are closeout offers.

More than a few times I have grabbed stuff out of there and made dinner, dessert or whatever else comes to mind with things.  Sometimes it's great and other times not so good.  The berries were a great example of not so good.

I was saw a bag of frozen blueberries so I grabbed them.  Let me fully explain this to you so you understand how rabid I was when I saw this bag.  I LOVE blueberries.  I have made a meal out of an entire grocery bag of blueberries I got once at a pick-your-own place.  I washed them, picked out the little bits of grit and stems you always find in with them and ate them.  All of them.  By myself.  I paid for it horrible the next day - I think that was my recommended fiber intake requirement for the entire year at one sitting.  I would be tempted to do it again.

Heck, to this day when I watch Willy Wonka (the old one with Gene Wilder) I still have an urge to see what the little purple girl would taste like in a turnover.  It'd be OK as long as it's sprinkled in sugar - right?

The contents of the bag looked and smelled pretty good.  When they thawed out however the little blue round things turned out to be leather pebbles.  That's the only way I can describe the sensation when I popped one into my mouth.  I was so sad, my blue berries that looked and smelled great had the texture of little soggy mummies.  I ate every one of them right out of the bag, but I'll never get them again.

Tonight's experiment came out quite tasty.  I grabbed a box of tri-colored rotini, kielbasa sausage, canned mushrooms, frozen spinach, condensed cream of chicken soup, shredded cheese and half & half.  Cook the noodles to al dente, simmer the soup, add a can of half & half, the canned mushrooms (undrained).  Cut up the kielbasa into bite sized pieces, throw the spinach into the pot while it's still frozen.  Technically the only thing that has to be actually cooked is the pasta.  Everything else just has to be heated threw so this was kinda like an instant dinner.   Sprinkle whatever seasonings you like, I added black pepper and garlic powder.   Just before serving add 1 cup of shredded cheese and let melt through - stir gently.  Serve over the pasta.

You can imagine this goes good with any easy meats - meaning leftovers, canned stuff like chicken and tuna, frozen cooked shrimp, almost endless in variations and I am all about the variations.

So dinner tonight was easy, nothing fancy, filling and of course cheap.  I made it and served it to five people and my total cost, not including the seasonings which I had on hand, was around $5.  Makes my budget happy.

Because it was easy it gave me plenty of time to daydream while putting it together.  What about you may ask?  Why, being reincarnated as a bear cub in Alaska, in an open sunny field with wild blueberry bushes as far as the eye can see.