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This is fairly inexpensive to do and makes a little lean ground beef go a long way. It's bulked up with a lot of vegetables and flavored with Thai green curry paste. It's delicious over some steamed jasmine rice, but any kind of rice is fine.

1 lb lean ground beef
Small head broccoli cut into small pieces
1 medium carrot peeled and sliced thin
1/2 red bell pepper sliced
1/2 medium onion sliced
Several torn leaves of perilla (a way of using up the last of the season)
Few cilantro leaves
Few cloves garlic
Several grates of ginger
2 tbsp green curry paste
1 small can bamboo shoots
Several mushrooms
Few dashes nam pla
Few dashes soy sauce
Few dashes mirin
Few shakes of curry powder, cumin, and turmeric
Drizzle of sesame oil

I marinated the meat about 15 minutes in advance by mixing it with some of the curry paste, grated ginger, minced garlic, mirin (optional, but I like the moisture and slight sweetness it gives), curry powder, cumin, and turmeric. This isn't necessary. Just brown it in oil, and add the onions, more garlic, carrots, and rest of the curry paste. Once the onions and carrots have softened, I added the broccoli and bell peppers and allowed the vegetables to release some water to get a sauce. Stir in some nam pla, soy sauce, and the rest of the green curry paste. If you don't have nam pla, just add more soy sauce - it's still delicious.

Finally, add in the mushrooms and let them release their water and cook down a little. Here I used oyster mushrooms but any kind is fine. Drain the can of bamboo shoots and add them as well as the roughly torn perilla. Check the bottom of the pan to see how moist everything is. It should be quite moist, with a little sauce but not runny. Shut off the heat and sprinkle some cilantro over everything. A nice touch is to sprinkle some lime juice, as well as some chopped peanuts but as I had neither I didn't.

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 50 minutes
Points: 3
Servings: 8

2 medium carrots, sliced thin
1 small onion, chopped
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 oz. uncooked bacon or pancetta, finely chopped (tryfreezing it first)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 beef bouillon cube
1 chicken bouillon cube
8 cups water
8 oz. dry lentils
5 oz. raw spinach (1/2 bag)
2 Tbsp. molasses
1 Tbsp. ground curry powder (to taste)
1 Tbsp. ground coriander (to taste)
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. salt

Warm oil over medium heat in a large soup pot. Add onion, carrot and salt. Cover and cook for 1 minute or so, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft and translucent. Add the chopped pancetta/bacon and garlic. Cover and cook for 30 seconds to 1 minute, until fragrant. Add coriander, curry and pepper, stir to coat veggies.
To deglaze the pan, add water and scrape bottom with wooden spoon. Add bouillon cubes, lentils and molasses. Raise heat and cover until boiling. Lower heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
Add spinach, cover and cook for 20 minutes
Meanwhile, cook elbow macaroni in a separate pot.
Serve 1/2 cup elbow macaroni with 1 cup of lentil soup. Dust with parmesan cheese.
(Add points for pasta and parmesan, depending on how much you use)