Samantha Beck/ Winonan

Shopping for healthy foods, or a meal for two, on a college budget is hard.  But relax: there are some genius ideas out there.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have any until last week. Usually I have three meals: crockpot chicken, spaghetti, and hamburger helper.  The repetition was killing my boyfriend’s taste buds, or so he said.

I decided to change it up,while keeping my budget in mind. I went to Wal-Mart and found myself staring at frozen buttered biscuits — actually, I was staring at the cinnamon rolls.  It occurred to me that you could put stuff in the flaky rolls, and that it could be a meal.

I quickly grabbed a tube and ran down the cheese and ham section, grabbing great value ham and Mexican-style shredded cheese.  This meal for two was under five dollars.  Needless to say, I was excited to try out this recipe.

When I got home, I started on the prepwork.

I preheated the oven to 400 degrees and had my boyfriend open up the tube of biscuits because I had no idea what I was doing. He didn’t have one either, until he read the entire package and nodded to himself pleased he knew something I didn’t.  He tore off the packaging and twisted, and the tube gave off a loud popping sound.

I placed ten biscuits on a small cookie sheet and began to spread them apart until there were twenty pieces.  I then sprinkled a little bit of cheese on one half of each pair.

I opened the ham and began to fold a slice into a triangle and place it on the cheese-covered biscuit.  I then covered the ham with more cheese.

I took the bare biscuit and clamped it down onto the biscuit with the cheese and ham.  I pinched the sides of the biscuits together so the cheese and ham wouldn’t leak out.

I placed them into the oven and set my timer for fourteen minutes.  In the remaining three minutes, I took out a can of green beans and threw them in a microwavable bowl for three minutes.

Baked ham and the butter rolls made my stomach grumble. I had to scrape the rolls off the pan with a fork, because I forgot to butter the pan.

My boyfriend looked skeptical when he picked up a biscuit. He cautiously bit into it, and the first thing he said after chewing was, “Holy cow. This is amazing.”

I smiled a crooked smile and grabbed my own biscuit before saying, “You have tomorrow night’s meal.”