Brown - Good and cheap : eat well on $4/day

EAT WELL ON $4/DAY

GOOD

AND

CHEAP

LEANNE BROWN

Workman Publishing New York

Contents

Introduction

Eating is one of lifes greatest pleasures. In a perfect world, healthy and delicious food would be all around us. It would be easy to choose and easy to enjoy.

But of course, its not a perfect world. There are thousands of barriers that can keep us from eating in a way that nourishes our bodies and satisfies our tastes. Money just shouldnt be one of them.

Kitchen skill, not budget, is the key to great food. This cookbook is a celebration of the many delicious meals available to those on even the strictest of budgets.

Eating on a limited budget is not easy, and there are times when a tough week can turn mealtime into a chore. As one woman told me, Im weary of the whats for dinner? game. I hope the recipes and techniques in this book can help make those times rare and the tough choices a little more bearable.

At the same time, this book is not a meal planthose are much too individual to share on a wide scale. Every person and every family has specific needs and unique tastes. We live in different regions, different neighborhoods, and with varying means. One book cannot account for all of that, but I hope it can be a spark, a general strategy, a flexible set of approachable and cheap recipes. The rest is up to you.

I think youll find (or perhaps have already found) that learning to cook has a powerfully positive effect. If you can become a more skilled, more conscious cook, then youll be able to conjure deliciousness in any kitchen, anytime. Good cooking alone cant solve hunger in America, but it can make life happierand that is worth every effort.

Just as a good meal is best shared with others, so is a good recipe. I may not be able to share a meal with you, but Id love to offer a few ideas. Whats for dinner? Heres my answer.

About This Book I created an earlier version of this book as the capstone project for my masters degree in food studies at New York University. After I posted a free PDF on my website (leannebrown.com), it went viral on Reddit, Tumblr, and elsewhere, racking up almost 100,000 downloads in the first few weeks. That support gave me the courage to launch a Kickstarter campaign to get printed copies of Good and Cheap into the hands of people who dont have computers or who wouldnt otherwise see it. Thousands of generous supporters contributed to the campaign, donating more than 9,000 free copies of the printed book and sponsoring twenty new recipes. That first printed edition of the book was self-published, and sold out within a few months. The PDF was downloaded about 500,000 times within six months after it was first posted. What you hold in your hands is a second edition, including 30 new recipes. The experience changed my life. I hope this book changes yours.

My Philosophy The best health advice is simple: Eat fruits and vegetables. Many American cookbooks rely on meat as the central feature of a meal. My recipes celebrate the vegetables rather than the meat. My intent was to create satisfying food that doesnt require you to supplement your meals with cheap carbohydrates to stave off hunger. I strove to create recipes that use money carefully, without being purely slavish to the bottom line. For example, many recipes use butter rather than oil. Butter is not cheap, but it creates flavor, crunch, and richness in a way that cheap oils never can.

Im not a dietitian, and this isnt a diet book. Im just a home cook, like you. If you have dietary restrictions, some recipes wont work for you as written, but thats fineyou can adapt them to your needs, or just turn the page and keep looking for inspiration.

More than a book of recipes, this is a book of ideas. I want you to tailor things to your taste. Improvisation is the soul of great cooking! If it doesnt work out every time, I hope youll forgive me. More important, forgive yourself, and try again.

A Note on $4/Day

I designed these recipes to fit the budgets of people living on SNAP, the US federal program that used to be called food stamps. If youre on SNAP, you already know that the benefit formulas are complicated, but the rule of thumb is that you end up with $4 per person, per day, to spend on food.

T his book isnt challenging you to live on so littleits a resource in case thats your reality. In May 2014, there were 46 million Americans on food stamps. Untold millions morein particular, retirees and studentslive under similar constraints.

If youre in Canada, or anywhere else outside the United States, it might seem like this book wont apply to you. While the specifics may differ, learning to cook and take joy in simple, real food is great for anyone, anywhere.

T he costs for each recipe are based on two sources. For the list of grocery ideas on page xiii, I collected prices from four grocery stores in a diverse neighborhood in New York. For specific spices and a wider variety of fruits and vegetables, I looked at online grocery stores or nationwide averages collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The prices for fruits and vegetables assume that theyre roughly in season, when you can get the best deals. This means, unfortunately, that youll pay a lot more if you want to make peach coffee cake in February. I talk more about shopping in season on the following pages.

The estimates are, by necessity, a snapshot of place and time. Costs will vary in other cities, other neighborhoods, even just other stores. Please think of the numbers as a guideline, not a guarantee.

More than in most cookbooks, my recipes are flexible and encourage substitution based on availability, price, and personal tastes. A strict budget requires flexibility and a willingness to say, Thats a good deal this week, so its what Ill be cooking! Dont worry, youll pick up the tricks quickly.

A few recipes call for fancy kitchen equipment, but in my work with low-income families in New York, Ive found that items like blenders, food processors, and electric mixers are fairly common. I did not, however, attempt to tackle the very real situation of people who have no kitchen, no equipment, and no space to prepare food. I simply cannot hope to do those issues justice within the bounds of one cookbook. Lets all agree that we need to keep striving to address all the issues that make it difficult for so many people to eat well.

Tips for Eating and Shopping Well

buy foods that can be used in multiple meals

Versatile ingredients save meals. If you buy flour, you can make . Need I even mention the versatility of garlic or lemons? If you always keep them around, you can make anything else taste fantastic.

buy in bulk

Buying larger amounts of one item can usually bring down the price per unit. When youre working within a tight budget, you wont always be able to afford to shop for the future, but you should do it when you can. And, of course, keep storage in mind: If the item will go bad before you can finish it, get the smaller size. Only buy what you can eat. If you buy versatile ingredients in slightly larger amounts, then youll be able to use them quickly but still make diverse meals.

start building a pantry

If possibleand admittedly this can be difficult for people living on their ownreserve part of your budget to buy one or two semi-expensive pantry items each week or month. Things like olive oil, soy sauce, and .