The $5 Dinner Mom Breakfast and Lunch Cookbook: 200 Recipes for Quick, Delicious, and Nourishing Meals That Are Easy on the Budget and a Snap to Prepare Review

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(More customer reviews)This book gives contains about 200 recipes that will feed 4, usually about $5 for the meal. There are hints for grocery shopping and meal planning and step by step directions for making food ahead.
Each recipe has frugal facts, some are: the kids love this and others have hints on how to slice peaches and freeze them when they are on sale for 3 pounds for $1.50 or less. Each recipe has the cost of every ingredient. To achieve the low price, dried beans are used, with a note that canned beans will be more expensive. Sales, using coupons and stocking up are the key to keeping the price low.
Included is a staples list, some of which you make yourself - homemade hamburger buns, pizza sauce, salsa. Then there is the list of what you should have in your freezer, refrigerator, pantry, and supply inventory such as foil and freezer containers. A detailed index is included, as well as some online resources.
Breakfast recipes include; cereals, egg dishes, with several that can be fixed the night before, pancakes, waffles, tacos and sandwiches. There are instructions for freezing, so they can be grabbed `on the go'. Lunches are for at home and to carry out: sandwiches, wraps, quesadillas, soups, pasta and garden salads, side salads and side dishes, there are also some snacks and smoothies.
Many have variations on eggs, tuna fish and chicken and might seem repetitive, but they do give variety and make use of inexpensive ingredients. There are some good ideas in here to make meals on a budget.

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The $5 Dollar Dinner Mom--savings guru, savvy supermarket shopper, and mommy extraordinaire Erin Chase--does it again! With the same fool proof system she used to cut your weekly food budget and put a healthy and delicious $5 meal on the dinner table for your family, she takes it one step further with "The $5 Dollar Dinner Mom Does Breakfast and Lunch". Tailoring her tips at how to size up supermarket deals, clip coupons, and create weekly menu plans, she helps you start your day the right way. With the help of Erin--whether at home or on the go--you can use all the same tools you learned in "The $5 Dollar Dinner Mom Cookbook" to create breakfasts and lunches for less than $5 that are easy and kid-friendly too!Breakfast favorites include:- Chocolate Chip Raspberry Pancakes- Bacon and Egg Quesadillas- Vanilla Almond French Toast- Overnight Honey Nut GranolaLunch favorites include:- Curried Chicken Salad Sandwiches- Swiss Tuna Melts- Lasagna Roll-ups- Chuckwagon ChiliAnd if you are wondering what to do now that breakfast, lunch and dinner are all covered, well don't worry, "The $5 Dinner Mom Does Breakfast and Lunch" also includes a bonus section for $2-4 snacks like pumpkin applesauce and oatmeal cranberry cookies to tide you over in between! Let Erin Chase show you how to have tasty, economical meals, all day, every day.

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More Make It Fast, Cook It Slow: 200 Brand-New, Budget-Friendly, Slow-Cooker Recipes Review

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(More customer reviews)I just received this book in the mail and have flipped through the recipes. She reorganized the layout and I find it helpful. It has the same sections as her previous cookbook (which I also have), but the book is split by price point. It's kind of a neat way to organize a cookbook so that when you look at your recipe you have a general idea of how much you might have to spend. I love her recipes and find myself using them frequently

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$3 Meals: Feed Your Family Delicious, Healthy Meals for Less than the Cost of a Gallon of Milk Review

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(More customer reviews)This book does a brief overview of how to save money at the grocery store (nothing really new). It goes on to present a major money saving strategy -- making every sauce, stock, dressing, and marinade from scratch. From there, the author presents recipes for main dishes. She finishes with recipes for baking breads and muffins from scratch.
The recipes are sound, and I have no doubt that they will produce reasonably healthy and tasty results. But...
#1 -- there is no reason to make every sauce from scratch. With sound couponing and savy shopping, I can get a bottle of bbq sauce for free (same for salad dressing, bottles of marinade, etc). If I make those things from scratch (and I frequently do), it is a question of quality, not cost.
#2 -- the main dishes presented are not complete meals. Most of them require additional side dishes (vegetable, fruit, and/or starch) to complete the meal. Beyond a passing mention of a crispy salad and fresh bread, the author does not provide any assistance in how to complete the meal and stay under budget. No ideas for inexpensive sides are provided.
#3 -- many of the recipes are not make-able for the advertised $3 pricetag. Unless I were to catch the fish myself, I simply do not see how I could make a dish calling for a pound and a half of bass or cod for a total cost of under $3. Nor could I make a dish that calls for 2 bulbs of fennel along with a pound of chicken and come in at that price.
#4 -- the serving sizes are a bit unrealistic. Most recipes call for 1 to 1.5 pounds of protein (beef, fish, chicken, or pork) and will serve 4 to 6 people. For six people, that's a 4 ounce portion of protein. Admittedly that is the recommended serving for many, but it is not enough for some men-folk and growing boys.
#5 -- virtually none of the sauces/marinades/dressings presented in the beginning of the book are used in the remaining recipes. so what are they for?
I think this book does have some good points, and a lot of good basic recipes. It presents some of the information and tools needed to control grocery budgets, but not all of them. If the author intended to present meals that were under $3 per serving, she succeeds. However, her book implies that it is $3 for SIX people... an unrealistic and unrealized promise. If I caught all of the ingredients on sale at their lowest price of the year, I could conceivably make most of them for under $6 each. If I were shopping on an average day, many of them would come closer to $10.

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Better Homes and Gardens Budget-Friendly Meals (Better Homes & Gardens) Review

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(More customer reviews)I got this cookbook a few months ago at a rock bottom price and I must say that it is great! There are a lot of great recipes that aren't just inexpensive, but easy and quick to make. Every cook should have this book! It is a great investment with fresh recipes and easy on your wallet. I highly recommend it :)

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A family-friendly collection of delicious recipes using just five ingredients

Between shopping, prep work, and cooking, making dinner for the whole family takes time and money. Better Homes and Gardens® Budget-Friendly Meals offers a simple solution with 300 inexpensive, simple recipes that shorten your shopping lists, cut your prep time, and put dinner on the table quickly and affordably.

You'll find helpful information and tips to make cooking on a budget easier than ever, including where and how to find the best ingredients for the best price. There are hundreds of tasty budget meals for every occasion, including beef, pork, poultry, and seafood favorites, hearty vegetarian dishes, and entire chapters dedicated to affordable sides and desserts.

Many of these meals make enough to enjoy twice, making it easier and more affordable than ever to cook simply and deliciously
Includes 300 recipes that will feed you family without deflating your wallet
All recipes use just five ingredients, keeping shopping simple and minimizing prep time

For busy families, keeping everyone fed without spending big can be a challenge. Better Homes and Gardens® Budget-Friendly Meals makes it easy!

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The $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook: 200 Recipes for Quick, Delicious, and Nourishing Meals That Are Easy on the Budget and a Snap to Prepare Review

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(More customer reviews)When I became interested in saving money on my grocery bill, I purchased both this book and Mary Ostyn's book, and have read them both thoroughly. Honestly, you will be better off just getting Mary's instead.
Before I get to the negatives, I'd like to state the few positives. I give props to Erin first for recognizing that Americans eat too much, and second for working vegetables into every meal. The reviewer who said that this book is overall unhealthy is exaggerating a little. Yes, she uses regular ground beef, but processed foods are in only a few recipes and frozen vegetables are still vegetables (and she does encourage growing your own). Both Erin and Mary emphasize eating less meat and offer vegetarian meal options. Erin does mention the use of a price book, but Mary does to a MUCH more thorough extent.
Now the other stuff...
The tips in this book are all commons sense-stock up when it's on sale, match coupons to sales. You don't need a book to tell you that. Every positive aspect of this book can be found in Mary Ostyn's book Family Feasts for $75 a Week, and you'll find lots of other information as well. Erin gives an ingredient by ingredient price breakdown in every recipe, which is a good concept, but the problem is that price can vary largely depending on where you are. There are some items that she's apparently been able to find at prices that I've never, ever seen anywhere I've been, and I'm a very price-conscious shopper. So, a lot of her "$5 meals" I would not be able to make for $5. Also, she groups the side dishes right in with the main course, including the price tag, so if you want to change up some of the main course-side dish combos, you're going to alter the price (and if you're not eyeballing the price, there's no reason to buy this book at all). Speaking of side dishes, this book has a lot of "bare" vegetables, so if you have taste buds and like to put a little salt or butter on your veggies, that's going to affect the price.
Some people have expressed concern over the portion sizes in this book for a family of four. Erin has two children, and they are both very, very young, and thus probably consume much less than a teenager or adult. If your two kids are teenagers, most of these recipes will have to be adjusted quite a bit, and thus make the final price much higher than $5 dollars. For that reason, I don't like the concept of putting a dollar value on the meal as a whole, but rather a dollar value on a "per plate" basis. Mary states that she rarely spends more than $1 "per plate."
Mary and Erin differ greatly on their view of coupons. Erin swears by them, and devotes most of the non-recipe section of the book to them. Mary, however, outright says that she rarely uses them. Her reasons are that most food coupons are for highly processed brand name foods that are either unhealthy or have much cheaper generic counterparts. Honestly, most generic foods taste the same. Instead of focusing on coupons, Mary utilizes foods that are inherently a better value to begin with.
Erin does offer some homemade items, such as basic sauces and salad dressings, but you'll find a much larger section on such items in Mary's book. One other thing you will not find in Erin's book is desserts. I believe desserts have their place at the dinner table on occasion, especially if you have children.
As for the recipes themselves, I tried a few of Erin's, and they were just ok. Most of these recipes you could probably come up with yourself or find online, really. There were some I didn't even have to try because I knew how'd they turn out (I cook a lot), and I have a hard time believing kids will eat a few of these. Ziti pasta with plain white sauce and no spices? No thanks. I've tried several of Mary's recipes, and all but one have been really good.Long story short...everything in this book that's worthwhile can be found in Mary's.

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$3 Meals in Minutes: Delicious, Low-Cost Dishes for Your Family That Can Be Prepared in No Time Review

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(More customer reviews)The premise of this book is great. The economy is tough and food prices seem determined to outpace unemployment numbers. However this book fails to deliver on several important points:
1.It's not really $3 a meal. It's $3 a serving and even then I'm not sure it really averages out to be that low in some cases.
2.The 'ways to save money' portions of the book are very general and superficial. The book 'hesitates' to recommend specific coupon websites for fear they might become defunct. God forbid we get a bad link! I mean, seriously? Further, aside from being told to use coupons, there is no specific insider advice beyond that. Nor any mention of Angel Food ministries. They are a non profit that offers meat at approximately a 50% savings. (Here's more info:[...])
Essentially,all the cost saving 'advice' is the same generic stuff you've already heard before. There's nothing new or fresh in this section of the book. We're even reminded to avoid grocery shopping while hungry. Like no one hasn't heard that one at least a dozen times!
3.I knew I was in trouble with this book when the basic roast chicken recipe calls for 3 different fresh herbs. If I were to purchase these at the store, it would easily be $6 in herbs alone. Ironically, I don't recall seeing any 'tips' about growing my own herbs as a way to save money.
4.There's big detour into 'knife skills' and other cooking expertise tidbits that I found kind of odd. This is meant to be an economizing cookbook. We don't go in depth on coupons, but chopping food gets a couple pages? Really?
5.There's no mention of cost on the recipes. I understand prices change, but it would be helpful to know if I'm looking at approximately $10 in ingredients or $20. Some barometer of recipe cost would have been helpful and made this cookbook more relevant.
Overall, this is a generic cookbook that falls short of delivering on its premise. However, the recipes seem competent and there's no question the author knows how to cook. I'm not sure they author really knows how to be frugal, though.
M


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Healthy Meals for Less: Great-Tasting Simple Recipes Under $1 a Serving Review

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(More customer reviews)I have used this book for several recipes this past week and my picky family has enjoyed every dish. I like how it has the price break down although I have not verified them yet. The dishes are healthy, flavorful and inexpensive. I feel as though my arsenal of meals to make for my family within budget has multiplied. I am a person that likes to try new things but hate cookbooks that call for ingredients I don't have in my kitchen. The reason why I have not verified price is because I had all the ingredients in my kitchen already. No special trips to the store. This book is a must for every mom who would like to make from scratch, healthy, inexpensive meals

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In this easy-to-use, make-it-from-scratch cookbook, Jonni McCoy, the original Miserly Mom, demonstrates that inexpensive meals can be both nutritious and mouth-watering.She offers proof that living well without spending is doable.Originally published as Miserly Meals, every recipe includes the price per serving and a nutritional analysis.Kitchen tips are an added bonus with every recipe.Simple soups, slow-cook dishes, breakfast ideas, vegetarian options, snacks, gifts from the kitchen, and more will make this the busy mom's most-used cookbook.

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Cheap Eats: Simple, Sumptuous Meals for Four You Can Make for Under $10 Review

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(More customer reviews)I taught myself to cook with this cookbook. The fact that it is organized by the seasons, removed the stress of an inexperienced cook looking for something seasonal, like asparagus, at the wrong time of year. The fact that it was in menu format taught me how to put a nice meal together. The recipes use basic ingredients and not prepackaged mixes which helped me understand what tastes go with other taste, and that also keeps the cost down. Simple secrets, like using lime juice to flavor the chicken in fajitas, came to me as I methodically went through cooking nearly every recipe. This cookbook changed the way I keep my pantry stocked and how I feed myself. I had Amazon find me a copy for a friend who is struggling to learn how to cook. It should be reprinted.

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From the creators of the bestselling 365 Ways cookbook series comes an exciting new cookbook with 49 fast, imaginative, and healthful three-course meals for four--all for under $10.00. Aware of today's eating habits and dietary trends, the authors present a mix of American and easy international dishes. Spiral-bound.

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The Guy Can't Cook Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this book for my fiance, and I have to admit I find myself looking at recipes in it even more than him. So far I've done two of them, and they were both a hit. The one was a meatloaf, and my entire family loved it. So much so even that my mom stole the recipe and made it (my dad hates her meatloaf), I laughed when they called a week later and said it was the best meatloaf she'd ever made. There's also some neat tips throughout the book, like how to tell how well done a steak is by comparing it to your hand. This is a catch all book with a wide variety of recipes to fit every meal and skill level. Highly reccomended!

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The Starving Students' Cookbook Review

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(More customer reviews)It wasn't so much college, as right afterwards, when money was tight, and Ramen noodles were considered a staple... The Starving Students Cookbook taught me a lot of really basic, but very tasty dishes that I still use today. My favorites include "Meatloaf Men Like" and "Easy Roast." I highly recommend this book to anyone living away from home for the first time, or who is just strapped for cash.

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Completely updated for the college student or reluctant cook of the '90s, this book offers even more mouthwatering dishes and a wide variety of vegetarian offerings. The recipes are explicitly described, complete with illustrations, cooking tips, and nutritional and health information.

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