Hey, anyone can spend a Franklin and fix a great meal. It's the chef who can prepare good food on a budget who has true financial security. No matter how dire the economic situation, the frugal chef can create a moment of honest nourishment and genuine pleasure as a part of every meal. There isn't any reason to become one of those sad, sorry, shuffling people eating Oreos out of a box just because you're broke...not with some of these recipes from a collection of my favorite frugal cookbooks.
Check out The $1.98 Cookbook: How to Eat Like a Gourmet and Save $6,000 a Year by Carl Japikse. My copy is from 1993, and it is totally falling apart because of the invaluable information in this little book. If you want to see what cookbook abuse looks like, just slide your eyes over to the photo on the right. By the way, I don't get paid by Amazon or Japikse or anyone else if you buy this book. I am just telling you my honest opinion, which is that if you like to cook, and you like to save money, you need this book!
Here are some sample recipes:
As a starving college student drifting about the Gentilly library, I discovered a book by Bill Kaysing promising to tell me how to eat for $1 a day -- and he told no lie, because I actually learned how to feed two people for $40 a month, and the techniques worked for quite some time, despite the pounding inflation of that era. The newest edition of the book is called Eat Well for 99 cents a Meal by Bill and Ruth Kaysing. At last report, the Kaysings were into their 70s using these techniques, and they don't hesitate to hop on a Harley or relax in a little-known Idaho hot spring. They aren't foodies. They are into healthy food, which can be quickly and cheaply prepared, so that they can get on with their fascinating life full of adventures.
Sample these great recipes by clicking right here.:
When you must really, truly eat cheap, Kaysing suggests visiting the health food or feed and seed store -- the feed store will be cheaper -- for a 50 pound bag of whole wheat berries. Make sure you don't have a wheat allergy first, of course. To wake up in the morning to hot cereal, put 3 cups water, 1-1/3 cup raw wheat, 1/2 tsp salt in a small crockpot and let it simmer overnight. Tastes good with raisins added to the crockpot too.
I'm on my second copy of All New Sophie Leavitt's Penny Pincher's Cookbook. It is a basic how to cook just about everything you would ever prepare in a home kitchen. Check out these sample recipes:
My battered copy of Better Homes and Gardens: Cooking for Two has deep brown, heavily age-spotted pages, while the front cover appears to have completely disintegrated. Yes, it is fair to say that this small 1976 edition of the book has been used and abused. The sample recipes I'm discussing are:
Strangely enough, for a book that is most likely a put-on, Jim Hoffman's The Art and Science of Dumpster Diving has a chapter of useful recipes that are fast, good, and cheap -- although not, I assure you, are cheap as he would have you believe. Grocery stores aren't really putting out perfectly good for free, and there isn't really a Santa delivering goodies down the chimney either, but since I return to these recipes again and again, this book must be mentioned. Sample these favorites:
With the cost of produce through the roof, it no longer makes sense to go on a vegetarian diet to save money. But sometimes we get on a veggie kick to promote better health or to make a statement. The classic fast, easy vegetarian meal is to make some white or brown rice in the cooker, then stir fry up whatever promising veggies you have around, and top it all with soy sauce. Always saute some onion and bell pepper as part of your stir fry; they'll add a little more zing. But the palate craves variety, and the doctor probably doesn't like the sodium in a daily dose of soy sauce, so I've been motivated to collect quite a few tasty alternatives over the years.
The classic guide to a vegetarian diet, The Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas, couldn't be published today. With its casual mention of wine or pot to enhance the appetite, and its blissful disregard for post-1972 hysteria about fat, it is a cookbook that puts good taste and good times front and center. Vegans, I'm afraid, need not apply. This book is for the honest-to-God gourmet. If you like good food and want to know what quality vegetarian food is about, go directly to Amazon.com or another book-seller's site, and put in an immediate purchase order.
Anna Thomas has her own web site, with new recipes as well as recipes from this beloved classic. I strongly advise you to pay her a visit. What is it about people who write cookbooks that causes them to have such fascinating lives? In the tradition of the fascinating cookbook writer, she is a film producer and writer. She co-wrote and produce My Family, Mi Familia, among other works.
If you like good soup and bread as much as Thomas does, these sample recipes will get your taste buds dancing. Important note: I do not own any rights to these recipes, nor do I receive any "kickback" for recommending them. If you enjoy them and would like to use them for commercial purposes, please contact Anna Thomas through the email address on her website.
The sample recipes must be sampled:
OK, I'm a little weird on the subject of lentils. But Esau didn't sell his birthright for lentil soup because it tasted bad, now did he?
I'd also like to recommend a couple of favorites from her second book, The Vegetarian Epicure: Book Two:
Fast, heart healthy, and in a hurry. Already you're thinking, yikes, that sounds like a depressingly taste-free combination. But my falling-apart-at-the-seams copy of Fast Vegetarian Feasts: Delicious Healthful Meals in Under 45 Minutes by Martha Rose Shulman suggests that flavorful food can actually be vegetarian, fast, and tasty.
Here is a recurring favorite recipe:
Secrets of the Golden Door by Deborah Szekely Mazzanti combines diet and exercise information. I return again and again to this vegan dessert made naughty by the tiniest hint of Grand Marnier:
Another useful cookbook is The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Cookbook, which includes many useful recipes, including the following:
I have the usual boxes of recipes scribbled on 3x5 cards, and it is time to put the recipes I use all the time where I can find them without going through a big batch of out-of-order files whenever I want to cook something. These recipes come from a variety of books, magazines, and other resources over the years, mostly uncredited. If you see your recipe here and want me to give you credit and/or add a link to your site, please get in touch and let me know.
The recipes I use constantly, especially at holidays, are on this page, while you may reach the less frequently used recipes by clicking on the links.
A is for Appetizers and Dips
Slice eggs in half lengthwise; remove yolks and mash. Add the remaining ingredients except for the parsley and paprika. Mix until smooth. Fill the whites. Dust with paprika and parsley. Makes 12. About 42 calories each.
There is an acronym for yeast breads, and that acronym is PITA. I am not satisfied that bread machines make a very tasty bread. But it's always fun to whip up a quick bread.
Preheat oven to 3500 F. Grease square baking pan. Add vinegar to milk and set aside. (Note: If you have old milk, that is already sour, you can use it safely for baking, but you do not need to "sour" already sour milk in vinegar first, of course! You can also use buttermilk.)
Sift together flour, powder, soda, salt, spices.
Cream together oil or butter and sugar. Mix well. Add molasses and mix. Add ingredients about 1/4 at a time, alternating by adding milk. Stir only until mixed after each addition. Turn into greased pan.
Bake 45 to 50 minutes, until bread passes the "clean knife" test in the center.
Mix dry ingredients. Stir in milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring until it boils. Boil gently for one minute, and remove from heat. Stir in butter and vanilla. Chill to serve cold.
Variations: For chocolate pudding, increase sugar to 1/3 cup and add 1-1/2 Tb. Cocoa at dry ingredients step. For cream pie filling, use as above, but reduce milk slightly to make it thicker.
Puree fruit in blender. Simmer sugar in wine until it dissolves. Pour into an 8 inch square pan and put in freezer, stirring every 15 minutes until creamy. Cover and freeze until hard. Serve with mint sprigs. 4 servings.
Freeze any fruit puree slowly to a soft mush, then fold in whipped evaporated milk. Finish freezing until firm.
