Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #78623 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 216 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781573443630
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review

Customer Reviews

Stretching the Dollar
Starr, Lara and Lynette Shirk. "The Frugal Foodie Cookbook", Viva Editions, 2009.
Stretching the Dollar
Amos Lassen
I do not, as a rule, review cookbooks but this one has so much in it that I am doing so. We are living in hard economic times and all of us want to know how to save a buck. I say start with this little book; for only $15.95 you can save so much. "The Frugal Foodie Cookbook" shows us how to be creative and clever in the kitchen and to make inexpensive and delicious meals. There is something for everyone and about everything that has to do with food. The recipes made my mouth water and I found myself experimenting as I read. There are hundreds of dishes and a lot of advice and you will find yourself eating better and spending less. This book is perfect for the times we are living in now. The book is lots of fun and delicious as well. What else goes so well with good food but wisdom and humor and the book has all three.

Tasty Recipes!
The Frugal Foodie Cookbook: Waste-Not Recipes for the Wise Cook is an unassuming little cookbook with a misleading name but some excellent recipes. I think this book sometimes veers more toward the quick and inexpensive rather than true "frugal foodie" territory, but the recipes I tried were nonetheless really delicious! While some of the recipes seem a bit out of place on the basis of "frugal" (pork chops and beef tenderloin instead of cheaper and more time-consuming cuts of meat) or "foodie" (imitation Egg McMuffins), those I did try were well worth the effort.

The fruit crisp in the "Brunches" section was so tasty that I made it twice, once with a mix of blueberries, blackberries, plums, nectarines, and pluots, and another time with a variety of stone fruits. Although I thought I'd tried pretty much every variation on crisp, crumble, and cobbler, this one used a different technique: the "crumble" part is made with egg as the only fat and then melted butter is drizzled over the top. This is nice in that it skips an annoying step (cutting in the butter) and also yields a tasty and crisp topping. My only issue with this recipe was that it calls for about twice as much butter as is really needed. When made with half the butter, though, this crisp recipe is definitely a keeper.

The second recipe I tried was the lemon-and-asparagus pasta. This is again one of those dishes that I've made many variations of, but Frugal Foodie presented a new and tasty version. Lots of butter coats the intensely lemon-y pasta, and cooking the asparagus in a bit of vegetable stock results in tender and flavorful veggies. We added dots of goat cheese on top for a little tang, but either way this is a very yummy pasta dish that I'll be adding to my summer repertoire.

Finally, I tackled the apricot preserves. I've always been really intimidated by canning, but when I saw three pounds of apricots on sale for ninety-nine cents at the grocery store, I knew this was the time to be daring! I messed up the recipe, accidentally leaving out the last-minute addition of lemon juice until the jars were already in their hot-water bath, so the jam had to be refrigerated or frozen to be safe to eat. However, even with the error, the preserves were still absolutely delicious! I definitely look forward to doing more preserving in the future...and next time, hopefully I'll get it right so I can have shelves lined with beautiful jars!

Plusses of this cookbook include some truly delicious and creative recipes, as well as more typical recipes that are likely pretty reliable and tasty if my recipe testing is any indication. There are also various tips sprinkled throughout the book that might be helpful to those just starting to try and cut down on their food budget. A negative is that the selection of truly unique recipes is padded with quite a few basic recipes like oatmeal and eggs. These may be helpful for a college student or beginner cook but are probably not really necessary for someone more seasoned in the kitchen. The book also lacks any photos and is sprinkled with distracting quotations that don't add much to the reading experience. Overall, I think this book is geared more toward busy moms or students than foodies who want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen getting the most out of inexpensive ingredients, but it likely serves that group well and definitely includes some culinary gems.

Photos of the recipes I tried are here: [...]

Required Reading for anyone who wants to save food money
As one who writes regularly about being thrifty, I am always suspicious of new books claiming to save food money. After all, how many times can you hear that if you make your coffee at home instead of buying it on the road, you'll save 23 dollars a month? The Frugal Foodie Cookbook however goes well beyond the ordinary and is a welcome volume filled with a veritable treasure trove of indispensible tips and recipes to help anyone (even my son in his dorm room) save money in the kitchen.

The recipes included are easy to follow and more importantly don't require exotic (and often expensive) ingredients. After all, what good is a family dinner dish if I have to fly to Spain to get the freshest saffron?

The recipes are good, hearty and tasty food. We tried the mushroom and onion pie which was nothing short of divine. We also made the Legendary Stone Soup (an added bonus is that we dug out the book and read the story to the kids) and the My Kid's Mom's Mac and Cheese which, well, let's just say that that one easily hit it out of the ball park.

Using humor, snap, and sass, the Frugal Foodie Cookbook offers more than just the usual money saving, common sense ideas, quotes, and tips. It includes humorous quotes like:

Ask not what you can do for your country, as what's for lunch - Orsen Wells

And practical and innovative tips like:

Frugal Foodie Tip: Spirited Shpritz
Pour 2 ounces or 1 minibottle of rum, Amaretto, Kahlua, or kirsch into a spray bottle. With just a few pulls of the trigger you can evenly coat cake cubes for trifle. Or add flavor and moisture to layer cakes by giving the top of each layer a couple of sprays before frosting.

This is a delightful book that will make saving money while feeding your family nothing short of sheer enjoyment. Well worth its cost, this cookbook should be required reading for anyone who is really serious about saving money in the kitchen.

Lynette Rohrer Shirk is a "4-star Frugal Foodie". She is a classically trained chef and author of nine cookbooks. She has worked in the kitchens of some of the best restaurants in the US, including Alice Waters' Chez Panisse and Wolfgang Puck's Postrio.

Lara Star is a baker, blogger, and a cook with a calculator. She is the co-author of The Party Girl Cookbook. Lara has offered advice on easy, affordable cooking and entertaining on TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, and websites throughout the US and Canada.