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!
Ultra-Simple Tomato Sauce
Super simple tomato sauce with bold tomato flavor that comes together in 5 minutes.
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.
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...
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.
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)
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.
Dumplings 2 Ways
Homemade dumplings made with either vegetables and tofu or pork and greens. You decide; steamed, boiled or pan-fried!
Avocado Milkshake
A delicious and unusual blend of super creamy avocado and milk or milk alternative, lightly sweetened with sugar and lime juice make up this avocado milkshake.
Poutine
This poutine is great for making at home as a treat. The fries are oven baked and the vegetable gravy is simple to make. I use fresh mozzarella here because I live in the northeast where that's easier to get than cheese curds, but please try cheese curds if you can find them!
Creamy Zucchini Fettucine
Creamy zucchini fettucine is like a lighter, brighter fettuccine alfredo with zucchini.
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,...
Peanut Butter and Jelly Granola Bars
Simple-to-make granola bars made from combining just oats, peanut butter and jam or jelly. You can make infinite variations and additions to this flexible recipe.
