A FRUGAL yet festive woman has spilled the details on how she prepares a three-course Valentine’s Day dinner for $15.
She purchased her ingredients from Dollar Tree, prompting others to rush to the popular discount store to do the same.
Rebecca Chobat (@dollartreedinners) filmed herself making the spread in a video on TikTok.
“Valentine’s Day is around the corner and if you’re looking for a fancy dinner that won’t break the bank, you can make this three course date night dinner for just $15,” she said
She purchased frying mix, pickles, ranch dressing, gnocchi pasta, parmesan cheese, cream cheese, sausage, mixed peppers, mozzarella cheese, muffin mix, cherry pie filling, and vanilla-flavored ice cream.
For the appetizer, she made fried pickle fritters. The recipe included pickles, frying mix, and oil — using ranch dressing as a dip on the side.
Next, for the main course she whipped up creamy gnocchi pasta served in a skillet.
“Bring a pot of water up to a boil and leave on standby for a second. Brown and crumble your sausage, but leave the drippings in and use that to sauté a couple of handfuls of the pepper stir fry,” she said.
“Add in six ounces of cubed cream cheese and about three quarters of a cup of the boiling water that we set aside. This will make a creamy sauce base for our gnocchi.
“Next, stir in half the jar of parmesan cheese. This is about one-fourth cup and the resulting sauce is similar to an Alfredo sauce,” she added.
Once the sauce was ready, Rebecca boiled the gnocchi until it started to float.
“I transfer it directly from the pot into our prepared cream sauce mixture and gently stir this together,” she said.
“Top it with shredded mozzarella cheese and broil it for a few minutes until it’s golden brown on top,” she added.
For dessert, she made a delectable cherry cobbler topped with ice cream.
“I mix the muffin mix with a half cup of water. The package calls for milk, but we can use water just fine to stay under our 15 dollar budget,” she said.
“Pour your cherry pie filling in a baking dish and pour the prepared muffin mix over the top.
“Bake this at 400 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes and serve it topped warm with the vanilla ice cream,” she added.
The video drew in hungry viewers who were clearly stoked to try out the Valentine’s Day feast for themselves, with one writing, “Just love your videos so much. I’m definitely doing this for my man this year.”
