If you are cooking on a budget, this free book of recipes is designed to ensure you and those around you are eat good, nourishing food, while being practical, and economical. And that you minimize food waste at the same time. It is important to consider that your food choices have consequences for the folks who consume your meals.
Intended to inspire you, these recipes are easy to prepare and are adaptable to your taste and of course the price of available ingredients. So you don't have to follow a recipes precisely or make it again in exactly the same way. These recipes are vegetable based but you may of course can replace with meat if you wish.
The structure of this cookbook reflects the way I think people ought to approach home cooking—loosely and confidently, with an intent to answer the basic questions that animate life.
For example, when I make a meal, I am simultaneously trying to answer several questions. What do I, and those I’m feeding, feel hungry for? What do I have on hand or left over from other meals? How can I use healthy produce, unfamiliar ingredients, or fresh food from local farms and businesses? How can I incorporate my favourite flavours?
As I answer these questions, I ensure that I am eating well and nourishing those around me. That I am practical and frugal. That I am conscious that my food choices have consequences for others. That I want to limit waste. And that I want to make the best, most lively food for me and those I love to feed.
These are not small decisions. They have a great deal of weight, yet we make them every day, often without thinking. Cooking regularly makes you more conscious about these decisions. It is empowering to be in control of what you eat and to realize that your food choices have as much power to shape society as they do to quell your hunger.
I want you to be able to answer all these questions for yourself. That is why my recipes are open and adaptable. They are meant to inspire, to remind you that you don’t have to follow a recipe exactly or make a sandwich the same way twice. These recipes happen to be vegetarian because I am vegetarian, but they could as easily incorporate meat or anything you enjoy.
This is how I cook and how I believe others should look at food preparation—easy and practical and enhancing each day. Cooking should not be a chore, but something to look forward to. Food should make you feel more alive, more socially connected. I hope this free PDF book can help you with that.