Eating Well on 4 Dollars a Day

By Leanne Brown
Published on September 10, 2015
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Originally developed by author Leanne Brown to provide quality recipes to those in the SNAP (or Food Stamps) program,
Originally developed by author Leanne Brown to provide quality recipes to those in the SNAP (or Food Stamps) program, "Good and Cheap" features a collection of tasty recipes that can be made on a shoestring budget.
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It's not always necessary to have a generous budget in order to make good food.
It's not always necessary to have a generous budget in order to make good food.

Good and Cheap (Workman Publishing, 2015)is a cookbook for people with very tight budgets. Author Leanne Brown’s recipes maximize every ingredient and teach economical cooking methods. The book also includes tips on prices and shopping, stocking your pantry with the basics, and mastering the simple extras that make everything taste better.

You can purchase this book from the Mother Earth Living store: Good and Cheap.

Eating is one of life’s 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, it’s 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 shouldn’t 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, “I’m weary of the ‘what’s 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 plan— those 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 you’ll 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 you’ll be able to conjure deliciousness in any kitchen, anytime. Good cooking alone can’t solve hunger in America, but it can make life happier—and 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 I’d love to offer a few ideas. What’s for dinner? Here’s my answer.

Recipes from Good and Cheap

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches Recipe
Easy Tomato Soup Recipe
Filipino Chicken Adobo Recipe
Potato and Kale Rolls Recipe
Raita Recipe


Reprinted with permission from Good and Cheap, by Leanne Brown, and published by Workman Publishing. Buy this book from our store: Good and Cheap.

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