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The $7 Meals Cookbook: 301 Delicious Dishes You Can Make for Seven Dollars or Less
With food and gas prices growing more expensive each day, families are always looking for new ways to save. This cookbook offers delicious recipes that are great for a shoestring budget, Big Batch Guacamole for next to nothing; Spicy Thai Peanut Noodles that are cheaper than takeout; Sicilian Meatballs made from pantry items you already have; peach Foster Crepes for only 56 cents per serving; and more tasty and affordable options! In this comprehensive, all-purpose cookbook, families will find simple instructions, nutritional information, and the amount of money needed for each recipe. They?ll feel like their dining at a five-star restaurant - at a price they can afford!
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 13, 2018
This was a pretty good, if basic, slow cooker cookbook. The recipes are extremely family friendly, and easy. The book is budget-conscious, though I don’t know if the costs I came up with would be the same.
The strong chapters for me were appetizers, soups and stews, and sandwiches. She also re-purposes some of the recipes in the salad chapter.
She uses a lot of canned ingredients, though you could easily swap those out for fresh vegetables (possibly saving more money, too, if you grow your own). You could do the same with the processed meats, like sausage.
This book contained nutritional information, and is great for families or anyone who uses their crockpot to get dinner on a regular basis. Most of the recipes aren’t that creative, but they are solid.
The strong chapters for me were appetizers, soups and stews, and sandwiches. She also re-purposes some of the recipes in the salad chapter.
She uses a lot of canned ingredients, though you could easily swap those out for fresh vegetables (possibly saving more money, too, if you grow your own). You could do the same with the processed meats, like sausage.
This book contained nutritional information, and is great for families or anyone who uses their crockpot to get dinner on a regular basis. Most of the recipes aren’t that creative, but they are solid.
May 6, 2022
I'm not sure these will all cost $7 to make, but there are recipes in here worth trying.
July 21, 2019
This cookbook actually made me sad. In the introduction, the author talks about why one should cook more of their meals at home. She reminds us that when we go out to eat, the we must pay the salaries of all the waiters, cooks, busboys, owners, etc and therefore we'd save money cooking our food at home. This is very true.
However, the author then goes ahead and uses a HUGE amount of processed and canned foods in recipes, even when there is no need. Remember that when we buy processed foods, we pay the factory owners and workers salaries too. Dried beans are cheaper than canned, for example.
But even more than simply using these ingredients, the author ADVOCATES using them, including a little side bar about why we should use and eat processed *cheeses*. As mentioned before, she often uses processed ingredients when using fresh ones would actually be cheaper and as easy, like using canned mushrooms and frozen broccoli. Many of her recipes also use canned meats, like Vienna sausages (ewwwwww). Please, if you care about your kids growing up healthy do NOT feed your kids recipes from this book. The author does one thing right, which is to have the nutritional info listed for all the recipes. But that only shows you how awful these recipes are! For reference, a grown person should eat roughly no more than 65 g fat daily and roughly 1500mg salt daily. Here are some excerpts from the cookbook:
The ranch casserole: 20.32 g fat and 1391.42 mg salt. Further, the recipe uses "canned condensed nacho cheese soup"-which I am horrified to learn even exists-and then two types of pre-shredded cheese. If the author were to break down the kinds of fat in her recipes, I am certain they will be very high in saturated fats, with at least several of them going over the whole daily limit.
This particular recipe is not an oddity, or unusual. The chicken Con Queso Casserole has 20.61 g fat and 834.52 mg sodium. The Slow Cooker Sausage and Cabbage has 25.93 g fat and 1297.25 mg sodium and the recipe list is actually probably one of the healthier ones. Even the vegetarian section of the book is gross, with the chili-tortilla meal having 20.45 g fat and 1082.43 sodium and the meatless chili has 1079.32 mg sodium, though that's because of using 3 kinds of canned beans that could be subbed for home cooked dry. The vegetarian section of the cookbook is by far the best and healthiest, but is also likely to be the section least used by "normal" people.
I could go on, but I won't. There are many wonderful cookbooks out there that can help you prepare healthy, cheap, and easy meals for your family in the slow cooker but this isn't one of them.
However, the author then goes ahead and uses a HUGE amount of processed and canned foods in recipes, even when there is no need. Remember that when we buy processed foods, we pay the factory owners and workers salaries too. Dried beans are cheaper than canned, for example.
But even more than simply using these ingredients, the author ADVOCATES using them, including a little side bar about why we should use and eat processed *cheeses*. As mentioned before, she often uses processed ingredients when using fresh ones would actually be cheaper and as easy, like using canned mushrooms and frozen broccoli. Many of her recipes also use canned meats, like Vienna sausages (ewwwwww). Please, if you care about your kids growing up healthy do NOT feed your kids recipes from this book. The author does one thing right, which is to have the nutritional info listed for all the recipes. But that only shows you how awful these recipes are! For reference, a grown person should eat roughly no more than 65 g fat daily and roughly 1500mg salt daily. Here are some excerpts from the cookbook:
The ranch casserole: 20.32 g fat and 1391.42 mg salt. Further, the recipe uses "canned condensed nacho cheese soup"-which I am horrified to learn even exists-and then two types of pre-shredded cheese. If the author were to break down the kinds of fat in her recipes, I am certain they will be very high in saturated fats, with at least several of them going over the whole daily limit.
This particular recipe is not an oddity, or unusual. The chicken Con Queso Casserole has 20.61 g fat and 834.52 mg sodium. The Slow Cooker Sausage and Cabbage has 25.93 g fat and 1297.25 mg sodium and the recipe list is actually probably one of the healthier ones. Even the vegetarian section of the book is gross, with the chili-tortilla meal having 20.45 g fat and 1082.43 sodium and the meatless chili has 1079.32 mg sodium, though that's because of using 3 kinds of canned beans that could be subbed for home cooked dry. The vegetarian section of the cookbook is by far the best and healthiest, but is also likely to be the section least used by "normal" people.
I could go on, but I won't. There are many wonderful cookbooks out there that can help you prepare healthy, cheap, and easy meals for your family in the slow cooker but this isn't one of them.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews