A mum who makes a five-minute dish for her family instead of the traditional Christmas dinner is urging others to avoid spending hours in the kitchen this year.
While many of us will be tucking into a roast dinner with all the trimmings, Amy Cross and her brood will chow down on a lasagne.
The mum, 48, says the dish takes her just a few minutes to prep, saves her a significant amount of money each year.
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But the main win? She doesn’t have to waste hours of the day cooking.
“Cooking a traditional dinner, I would spend four hours of Christmas Day in the kitchen and then have to clean up a bigger mess afterwards,” Amy, from Seattle, Washington, US, told What’s The Jam.
“Now I get to spend that time with my family and making memories without being worn out by cooking a big meal.
“Mums work for weeks ahead of Christmas to make it magical.
“The last thing we need is to spend the day in the kitchen cooking.
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“For me, Christmas is all about the littles and they don’t care if we have a fancy meal or just one that we have made special because it became our tradition over the years.
“Every once in a while I will make a traditional meal, and regret the time and money spent when my family are just as happy with lasagne.
“We would rather spend time together and make memories.”
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Amy previously cooked a full traditional dinner on the big day, but switched to the Italian pasta dish several years ago in a bid to save time in the kitchen.
The change has also proven cost-effective, with her saving roughly 70 (£134).
Amy said: “It is so much more affordable then making a traditional meal and everyone is watching their grocery budgets right now.
“This meal can be made for under 0 (£24) which is a huge savings to the over 00 (£158) I was spending on a traditional meal.
“Now I get to spend the day visiting with family, enjoying the kids playing with their gifts, playing games or doing puzzles together instead of being in the kitchen all afternoon.
“Spending more time making memories with a lot less stress!”
The thrifty mum prepares the lasagne on the day using the most convenient methods possible, including jarred sauce and pre-grated cheese.
She explained: “Five minutes on Christmas afternoon is all that it takes to throw together the simple ingredients to make a lasagne.
“By layering the noodles with sauce, you don’t even have to boil the noodles beforehand.
“For our Christmas lasagne we use ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan cheese layered with jarred sauce.
“This is the one time of the year that I go ahead and buy mozzarella cheese already shredded to make the assembly process really simple, and if we have left over mozzarella cheese then we save it for homemade pizza later.
“Shredded cheese can be put in the freezer for a later time or in a glass jar with a metal lid in the fridge and it will stay fresh much longer then in a plastic container.
“The ricotta I mix in the bowl with the cheese, one egg, Italian seasoning and garlic.
“This bowl is the only extra dish needed to make the lasagne and the 9×13 pan that you put in the oven and also serve the dinner in.
“I bake it for 40 mins with tinfoil covering it.
“A 9×13 pan will feed 6-8 adults making this really affordable if you have guests over for the holidays, and leftovers can also be frozen for later.
“We have this with garlic bread and a Caesar salad.
“Other times of the year we will make lasagne with cooked ground beef and sausage and also used sliced zucchini instead of noodles – but Christmas dinner is just quick and easy.”
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