All About Good and Cheap
Good and Cheap is a cookbook for people with very tight budgets, particularly those on SNAP/Food Stamps benefits. The PDF is free (ahora en Español!) when you sign up for my newsletter and has been downloaded more than 15,000,000 times. It is also available in print, and for every copy sold we donate one to someone who can’t afford it.
Good and Cheap had an unusual journey into publishing. It started out as the thesis for my Masters degree in Food Studies at NYU. I made a digital version of the book, but didn’t have any kind of distribution or marketing plan. After some fruitless attempts at working with non-profits, I decided to simply offer it as free download on a simple website in early 2014.
A few weeks later someone posted it on Reddit and I was astonished by the interest! The book was downloaded so many times that first day that it broke my website. Suddenly my inbox was full of kind advice, stories, gratitude, and encouragement from strangers who wanted to get the book out there as much as I did!
With that encouragement and proof that there was an interested audience, I started a Kickstarter project to fund a print run to get Good and Cheap into the hands of those who couldn’t get it online. For the summer of 2014, I worked night and day, along with my now-husband Dan and many generous friends, to make the project a reality. The experience changed my life. We were trying to raise $10,000 but ended up with a whopping $144,681. This allowed us to print 40,000 copies of the book, giving away one for every copy sold to someone who couldn’t otherwise afford it. We made 25,000 available for just $4/copy to organizations who work with target populations. It was amazing! Also completely wild and exhausting and unsustainable. But luckily we got help.
Next I found a wonderful publishing home in Workman Publishing. I never thought the book could be a commercial success; that was why I did it as a master’s thesis. I was so happy to be wrong. Workman was supportive of the buy-one-give-one model from the beginning and have been even more insatiable than I was about getting it into the hands of non-profits at deep deep discounts. In 2015, I got to go on a massive book tour, meeting so many incredible people, sharing stories and generally basking in the glow of all the incredible work people are doing. In addition, Good and Cheap won the 2015 IACP Judge’s Choice Award, I made the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Food and Drink, and Food & Wine and Fortune named me one of the Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink. Good grief!
Check Out Some of the Recipes!
Big Idea Week!
Happy May to you all! It's a beautiful day here in NYC. I'm participating in Big Idea Week as a mentor and this morning I got to present to a bunch of 4th graders at PS 15 in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The basic premise of Big Idea Week is that people from all kinds of industries (even cookbook authors apparently!) come to present their work to the kids. We talk about the problem our work addresses, the ideas we came up with to address those problems, and how those ideas become solutions. So we present to the kids on Monday,...
My Dad’s Baked Beans
My Dad is a man of simple tastes. Not that he likes things boring! He always chided my sisters and I for getting "just pepperoni" on our pizza when we were kids. What sort of lunatics don't get olives and peppers and mushrooms? Well, my sisters and I obviously. BUT the truth is that the easiest way to please him was to simply make him a grilled cheese sandwich. And man, if you thought to put some spicy mustard, pickled jalapeños or olives in it. WELL, clearly there was a culinary GOD in the house. This recipe is what my...
Dumplings 2 Ways
Homemade dumplings made with either vegetables and tofu or pork and greens. You decide; steamed, boiled or pan-fried!
Chocolate Zucchini Muffins
Moist chocolate zucchini muffins with oats and yogurt, perfect for breakfast or dessert!
Kale Caesar Salad
Dinosaur Kale tossed with a classic Caesar dressing and homemade croutons.
Vegetable Jambalaya
Jambalaya is a reader favorite, and it's easy to understand why! This dish takes boring rice and leftover vegetables and makes it into an exciting, spicy, satisfying meal to feed a crowd! It's a perfect way to enliven any leftovers from a large Easter dinner and make them into something new and mouthwatering.
Cornmeal Crusted Vegetables
I've been making these a lot lately at different events around the city. They're a great party food so they're perfect when there's a crowd. They also surprise people. They're like vegetable chicken fingers! I suggest in Good and Cheap that you serve them with peanut sauce, but people have enjoyed them with sour cream and scallions, spiced yogurt and even salsa. And now that it's solidly asparagus season well, it's time to try crusting them! (from Good and Cheap p.62) Pictured are bell peppers and green beans.
Filipino Chicken Adobo
Chicken Adobo is a classic Filipino dish of chicken and vegetables cooked in vinegar and soy sauce. Tangy, salty and rich, and it keeps for days in the fridge.
Jacket Sweet Potatoes
Baked sweet potatoes are a fun weekday meal.All you have to do it throw them in the oven and grab a couple of toppings from the fridge. I first got into them when I had a large number of sweet potatoes from a farm share. They were all odd sizes with long knobbly bits and I just didn't know what to do. So I just baked them, grabbed some sour cream and other random sauces and made a little topping bar. We ate potato after potato (these were little ones I swear!) and tried different toppings on each. So easy...
How Good and Cheap Enhances a Student Program in St. Paul, MN
Hi guys! Today we have a wonderful guest author, Aimee Gonzalez here to tell a story about how she has used Good and Cheap in her work with Latino high school students in St. Paul, MN. If you or anyone you know would like to share their story about how they're using Good and Cheap please write to me at leanne@leannebrown.ca with subject line Good and Cheap Stories. --- Leanne The question every single one of us has asked ourselves at one point or another in our lives is more or less: “What am I supposed to contribute to this...
2nd edition of Good and Cheap is out today!
Today is a big day: The bigger, better, cheaper 2nd edition of Good and Cheap is now in bookstores throughout the US, Canada, and the UK! It’s 32 pages longer than the 1st edition, with more than 20 new recipes. Best of all, for every book you buy, we donate another copy to someone in need. (And yes, the 1st edition is still available as a free PDF.) Visit your local bookstore to snag a copy, or order it from any of these shops online: If you're thinking about buying a copy, sooner is better — first week sales are...
A Good and Cheap Story from Carlos Olaechea
Today’s post comes from Carlos Olaechea, he’s working towards a Master’s degree in Boston University’s Gastronomy program. I was personally really touched by his story, and I think it points to a lot of issues with cooking and eating for little, that we don’t talk about enough. I hope you’ll read it, think about it, and consider sharing. If anyone has a story, personal or otherwise that you would like to share, please write to me at Leanne@leannebrown.com. I've never been on food stamps, but there were times when I was living on a very modest budget from my unemployment...
