frugal (but healthy) cookbooks? (Or share some recipies?)

[canuckgal]

Just wondering if anyone can recommend some good cookbooks. It seems all the recipies or cookbooks I have seen touted as "frugal" are, well, not what I would necessarily consider healthy. I am thinking of books that have recipies that are SOOoooo heavy on "hamburger and white stuff" ie- bread, noodles, with a can of mushroom soup thrown overtop. I am thinking of those older cookbooks here. Sorry to anyone who has books like this and like the recipies (don't mean to offend!)

I am looking also for good meatless recipies. I have Jonni McCoy's Miserly Meals and it is pretty good, but the meatless recipies look not too appealing for my family's taste. I used to be a lacto-ovo vegetarian long time ago, and have pretty adventurous tastes, but for dk's and dh something like beans and rice would be another matter! Anything with meat in it would be ok too.

Looking forward to your wisdom ladies!!

Tina, dp James , dd Stephanie (5 1/2) and ds Jonathan (32 mo)

[eldadeedlit]

I don't have it, but I read about the More With Less cookbook in the Tightwad Gazette and it looked interesting.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/083...books&v=glance

I think it has a religious slant to it, but that could easily be ignored.

-Veronica

[rabbithorns]

That's exactly the cookbook I was thinking of! The author also wrote another great book called Living with Less which is really good too.

The Farm Cookbook from The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee is also really good. Total vegetarian.

[AngelBee]

I really love Dining on a Dime cookbook by Tawra Kellam and Jill Cooper
www.livingonadime.com

Also check out www.hillbillyhousewife.com

[dvons]

I like to use Not Just Beans for most of my basics. There are a LOT of suggestions in there. I also like the Saving Dinner Series which is not nessasarily frugal it does help to plan meals which saves money in the long run.

Deb

[sarah_bella1050]

My absolute favorite so far is Hearth and Home by Karey Swan. It uses all natural, healthy ingredients. It's like a staple in my kitchen, it just has all my favorite from scratch recipes. It has a lot of things that you can just make from the stamples that you have in your home, very old style. You could probably go to a book store and leaf through it and some others, that is the best way to find the perfect cookbook. OOhh I was just looking through it again and found a couple more recipes to try this week


I wanted to add that I checked out the More with Less cookbook from the library a while ago and I really wasn't impressed. There were a few good things, but most of it was made from lard, red meat and pretty much high fat foods. It looked really unapeeling......

Oh, and I've also heard some great things about the Whole Foods Cookbook and Nourishing Traditions

[MonP'titBoudain]

I use More With Less for ideas about saving money, than I adjust the recipes. I agree with PP that some of the recipes seem kind of icky as is, but lard is easy to replace with olive oil and it's a great resource for things like making yogurt or master recipes, etc. Also, Extending the Table is by the MWL author's husband (she started the work, then died I believe) and it is recipes from around the world... so it can be pretty frugal, too and the recipes are a little more apepaling. They are published by (and orginally for) the mennonite church. I'm excited to check out some of the other suggestions, though!

[LadyMarmalade]

Subbing.

It's easy to do frugal, and it's easy to do healthy. But it's really hard to do the combination.

[Haydee]

I was going to make chicken noodle soup tonight, but realized I didn't have any chicken, so I did a quick online search and found this awesome recipie for carrot soup. This was perfect since carrots were on sale this week and I have a ton of them. The link to it is: http://fooddownunder.com/cgi-bin/recipe.cgi?r=9388 and it can even be vegitarian if you use veggie stock instead of chicken stock.

[mama4gals]

I have a very tattered copy of More With Less, as well as LLL's Whole Foods for the Whole Family, which tells you I use them a lot. I don't know if you can get the LLL one anymore; mine is about 17 yrs old--got it when dd#1 was tiny. I also love the Poor Man's Cookbook, although it's not what a lot of you would consider "healthy".

Liz

[eminer]

The key for me has been to start with cheap (ideally, even cheaper on sale) but healthy ingredients, then look online for -- or invent -- recipes to use them. Some of my favorite cheap but healthy ingredients (I know opinions vary on what constitutes healthy): whole wheat flour, oats, cornmeal, dried beans, whole chicken, homemade chicken or vegetable stock, plain yoghurt, greens, cabbage, carrots, potatoes, olive oil (bought in a huge tin), apples.

Examples of meals to make with these things, all of which are pretty common and easy to find tons of recipes online or in your own cookbooks or just improvise:
- falafel on homemade pita
- lentil (with spinach) soup with cornbread
- baked beans with greens and cornbread
- chicken and (homemade, whole wheat) noodles with a veggie
- chicken fried (brown) rice (using thin-chopped cabbage and carrot slivers)
- vegetable stew with homemade bread
- potato soup (with broccoli, or leeks in season) with homemade bread

For the baking, it helps to make a yeast "starter sponge", which stretches a third of a packet of dried yeast to last a week. It also gives it a great flavor and lighter texture -- especially if you do a slow second rise, overnight in the refrigerator. Or if your family will eat natural sourdough, that's even cheaper! A lot of baking from scratch sounds overwhelming, at least to me, but my dh has his sponges sitting around and actually thinks of it as no effort at all, because it's habitual. He'll be kneading dough in a bowl while reading his email. He has discovered that you don't really need a recipe to make bread.