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!
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...
Fast Melon Sorbet
It's SO HOT. Let's eat watermelon together. Let's just eat watermelon and sit and sweat. Okay, some of you are overachievers. This is for you. Take some of your sweet, sweet watermelon and chop it into cubes (take the rind off first, silly). Put it in a bag or receptacle in your freezer. Once it's frozen make it into sorbet using just a little yogurt and sugar and a food processor or blender. Add some vanilla or lime juice (or anything else you think would work with watermelon) if you're super serious about it. Fast Melon Sorbet FOR FOUR
Coconut Lime Oatmeal
Coconut lime oatmeal is just a simple oatmeal recipe with added coconut and lime juice. An easy way to add a little bit of tropical to your morning.
Caramelized Bananas
These bananas—cooked in just a bit of caramel—are crispy and gooey on the outside and almost like a soft pudding inside. Sweet, messy, and irresistible.
Ginger and Mushroom Tofu Hot Pot
This Tofu Hot pot features tofu slices, vegetables and noodles snuggled into a hot ginger, garlic and mushroom broth. Comes together quickly and is even better on day 2.
Egg Sandwich with Mushroom Hash
A classic deli-style egg sandwich with potato and mushroom hash. Ideally enjoyed on a lazy weekend morning after a late night out.
Kickstarter for Good and Cheap
Today I am launching a Kickstarter to fund a print run of Good and Cheap, my free PDF cookbook for people on Food Stamps. Please take a few moments to check it out and share it with your friends. Just over a month ago, April 29th, a lovely person posted a link to Good and Cheap on Reddit. Soon it was on Tumblr, Hacker News and many other places besides. It was downloaded so many times that it temporarily broke the site twice. I was so encouraged and touched by the supportive comments from strangers. It was tremendously heartening to...
Vegetable Quiche, Hold the Crust
As long as eggs are in my fridge I know that a good meal is only a few minutes away. But sometimes scrambling, frying or poaching just doesn't feel enough like dinner. This quiche looks beautiful and is great to serve to guests. (from Good and Cheap p. 114)
Taco Salad
In the summertime even avowed salad haters are willing to join the salad munching set. Ugh, seriously, it's too hot to cook with heat! My apartment is already sauna-like. My fanning arm is growing weak. So this salad is for those who might feel hesitant about salad being a "real" meal. Taco salad is basically a deconstructed bunch of tacos in a bowl with some extra lettuce for kicks. You could call it "lazy tacos" or "summer taco bowl" or "crunch lunch" if it makes you feel better. Taco Salad (from Good and Cheap page 52)
Lightly Curried Butternut Squash Soup
Pureed butternut squash soup with added flavor from curry and coconut milk.
Black Eyed Peas and Collards
'tis still the season for warm pots of yummy stuff. When it just seems like the winter will never end it feels good to eat something green. Collards are great at this time of year and melt beautifully into a pot of black eyed peas with the salty, smoky bacon counterpoint. You can substitute beans instead of peas and spice this up any way you want to. Serve this over rice or any other grain, or with some toast or flatbread
Cauliflower Cheese
A classic side dish in Great Britain: creamy, cheesy sauce over cauliflower, baked in the oven until the edges get crunchy and bubbly.
