Jessica Fisher - Good Cheap Eats Everyday Dinners and Fantastic Feasts for $10 or Less

The Harvard Common Press
www.harvardcommonpress.com

Text and photographs copyright 2014 by Jessica Getskow Fisher

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed on acid-free paper

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Fisher, Jessica (Jessica Getskow)

Good cheap eats : everyday dinners and fantastic feasts
for $10 or less / Jessica Fisher.
pages cm
Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-55832-843-3 (paperback)

1. Low budget cooking. I. Title.

TX714.F5738 2014
641.5'52dc23

2014001628

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Photographs by Jessica Getskow Fisher
Author photograph by Sharon Leppellere

e ISBN 978-1-55832-844-0
v1.0714

To my parents, Jack and Veronica Getskow, for sharing their love of good food with me and modeling frugality in the process

I love food.

My mom says it started when I was two, at a steak house with my parents and their friends. The adults were so busy conversing that they didnt notice that the toddler had eaten the entire side order of sauted mushrooms, a plate big enough to feed four adults.

What can I say? They were good.

And so started my foodie career. Ive always liked to eat. It didnt bother me (much) that the kids at school mocked the strange toppings on my pizza or the tuna salad and sprouts that I packed in my Mork and Mindy lunch box. If it tasted good, Id eat it.

I made a point to surround myself with food and to learn as much as I could about it. For my first job, I worked in the grocery store, bagging groceries, pushing carts, and asking customers what they were going to do with the ingredients that came down the line. One summer I got a job at an amusement park, hawking frozen bananas from a cart in the Southern California sunshine. In college I worked for the universitys dining services, prepping salads, sandwiches, and other platters for the college catering company. Later I worked in a bakery and restaurant, first as a barista, then as a waitress.

While my degree may be in French literature, my heart has always belonged to food. Speaking of which, I ate my way through France during my junior year abroad. But, I bet you guessed that already.

When I married and settled down in Santa Barbaraan expensive town to live and dine inmy husband and I were surrounded not only by great restaurants but also by great friends who showed us the art of eating well at home. That was the only way any of us could enjoy top-notch food and still make ends meet in such an affluent community.

For our part, we lived in a 200-square-foot studio apartment in order to stay in town and under budget. I would cook up a storm on Sunday afternoons so that we could bring friends home with us from church that evening for supper. Wed squeeze as many people as we could into that tiny studio, with some folks lounging on the bed, others gathered around the table. Wed share a meal, a bottle of wine, and plenty of good conversation.

The joys of eating well at home have provided the sustenance we rely on, first to make our way as a newlywed couple and later to nourish our brood of six growing and seemingly always hungry children. When the first FishBaby arrived and I became a stay-at-home mom, we learned through trial and error how to feed a family on a budget. As subsequent FishKids were added to our clan, we learned more about feeding a crowd with healthy yet frugal food. Home-cooked meals have also served to comfort us through unemployment, debt, loss of family members, and cross-country moves. Good food has been there through feast and famine, comfort and celebration.

If were together and eating well, our hearts are happy.

For us, good cheap eats is an integral part of all that. Weve always lived on a tight budget, so its been important for us to stretch each dollar as far as it could go. Even during the process of paying off excessive consumer debt in a down economy, we made it a priority to eat the tastiest and healthiest food we could afford.

Why Good Cheap Eats?

Good food is a part of every culture. It brings comfort and nourishment as well as a social connection. Gathering around the supper table is not only a time to refuel physically after a long day, but its also a time to reconnect with friends and family.

As a college student and later a new bride, I pored over gourmet magazines and pined over fancy restaurant menus, wishing that our budget could accommodate my foodie cravings. What I learned through practiceand failurewas that I could cook just as well asif not better thansome of the restaurants we loved, and furthermore, that I could do it for pennies on the dollar.

In life and on my blog, Good Cheap Eats, my motto has been, Eat well, enjoy life, act your wage. That last part I learned the hard way.

Our Wrestle with Debt

In 1998, we had just taken out our first mortgage, a stepping-stone to years of debt. Up until that point, Id never even carried a balance on my credit card. Wed paid off my student loans within two years of graduation. We built a sizeable emergency fund before the birth of our first child, which marked my retirement from public school teaching.

And then we bought a house, moved far from family and friends, and started to live beyond our means. It didnt happen all at once. Wed always been frugal people, cooking meals at home and searching for bargains when we were out. But our spending started to exceed our income, and before long we had nickel-and-dimed ourselves into debt.

Nine years later, we found ourselves in the hole with two homes mortgaged, sky-high credit card bills, and nonexistent savings. That was 2007. We were lucky enough to get a wake-up call before the rest of the country. It was then that we got serious about learning to manage our money better. We cut up our credit cards and created a zero-based budget where every expense was planned and agreed upon. We read up on resources for getting out of debt and followed Dave Ramseys unique plan for getting our financial house in order. And we ate beans and rice. A lot of beans and rice. In the end, we paid off $18,000 over the course of 18 monthsand we lived to tell about it.

One of the keys to our survival was learning how to eat well on a budget. We learned over time how to shop and how to eat in ways that pleased our foodie taste buds and the more selective preferences of the FishKids without sending us to the poorhouse.

Thats what this book is about: great food, happy hearts, and balanced bank accounts.

But this doesnt mean that you have to subsist on cheap ramen noodles and macaroni skillet disheswe sure dont. Some of the best from-scratch meals in the world are crafted from wholesome ingredients using simple preparations. In addition, youll find shopping tricks, meal planning strategies, and tips to build a pantry that will serve you and your wallet effectively. They will enable you to stretch your dollar, eat well, and really enjoy your life.

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