Found a $3 thrift store cookbook that changed my weekly meal prep

I was at the Goodwill on Bouquet Canyon last Saturday, bored out of my mind, when I spotted this beat-up cookbook from 1985 called "Cooking on a Shoestring." Paid three bucks for it. Got it home and it's full of recipes using basic stuff like canned beans, frozen veggies, and cheap cuts of meat. I made a lentil stew from it that cost me like $4 total and it lasted three days. Has anyone else found old cookbooks or resources that actually helped with cutting food costs?

2 comments

2 Comments

grant.sam1mo agoMost Upvoted

The "More With Less" cookbook from the 1970s did the same thing for me. I found it at a library sale for fifty cents and it taught me how to stretch a pound of ground beef into three different meals. One recipe for "S.O.S." was just creamed beef on toast but it got me through a rough month. That lentil stew sounds exactly like the kind of thing these old books are full of. They don't try to be fancy, they just show you how to make a little bit of food feed a lot of people.

nancy5241mo ago

Hated the idea of vintage cookbooks for years, thought they were all jello molds and canned meat. Then I found a beat up copy of "The New York Times Cookbook" from the 60s and it totally changed my mind. That lentil soup recipe with a ham bone taught me more about cooking on a budget than any modern blog ever did.