Bargain Meal of the Week

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First here is my Bargain meal of the week (then I'll have a surprise snack of the week).

We have a cookbook called 4 Ingredient Recipes that I just love. Everything we've made out of it has been really good, and with only 4 ingredients it is very easy also.

Onion Baked Pork Chops

1 Envelope Onion Soup Mix
1/3 c plain dry bread crumbs
4 pork chops, 1 inch thick*
1 egg, well beaten

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. In a small bowl, combine soup mix and bread crumbs. Dip chops in egg, then bread crumb mixture, until evenly coated.

2. In lightly greased 13x9 inch baking or roasting pan, arrange chops.

3. Bake uncovered 20 minutes or until barely pink in center, turning once.

*I have never used 3lbs of pork chops when making this recipe, and it probably wouldn't qualify as a Bargain Meal if you did (at least with the Hy-vee sale this week). I just use the amount of meat I need, which would be 2 or 3 pork chops (Bodie seems to love pork chops lately).

Bonus Snack Recipe...I love this recipe, and could eat it all day long. I am thinking of making it for Easter Sunday since I gave up pretzels and crackers for Lent (seems like an odd thing to give up but with a 2 year old in the house I was always mindlessly munching on things like that).

Pretzel dip recipe

3 pkg. 8 oz cream cheese (softened)
1 stick butter
1 pkg Hidden Valley Ranch Original
1/4 c. Parmesan cheese (dry)

Empty cream cheese into large bowl. Wash cream cheese containers, dry thoroughly, grease with butter and dust with coarse ground black pepper**.

Beat above ingredient. Press into containers. Serve with pretzels.

For best results: if dip has been refrigerated, let set out for 5-10 minutes before putting it on a plate - it comes out of the container better when it's not really cold.

**Or to make things easier just mix everything into 1 larger container, no need to grease or put pepper down first.

For more Bargain Meal ideas, head over to $5 dinners.