Reddit reviews French Cooking in Ten Minutes

Get a slow-cooker at the thrift store. Slow-cooked pintos require very little prep but a lot of time - get a bag for $nothing$, wash and soak the night before, set to low when you leave and come home and there's lots. They also freeze very well.

Whole chickens are infinitely cheaper than boneless skinless and easy to cook. You can feed two people for three days on a chicken; take the plastic off, wash it, pat it down, stuff some veggies in it for flavor (celery, half an onion, an apple) and bake it in the toaster oven (uses less juice than your range). The bones and such will make stock, but I find that I never really need "stock." That may change...

Rice cookers make rice trivial and cheep. You can get a 10lb bag of rice for 12 bux. 10 lbs of rice will last you and a friend months.

Ground turkey in bulk (5+lb) is very cheap. Buy it, take the plastic off, cut it into 1/2lb chunks, pick them up in ziploc baggies like dog poop, push out all the air and huck 'em in the freezer. Try and keep them ball-shaped if you intend to thaw them in the microwave or thin and flat if you intend to thaw them on the counter.

Any vegetables you buy at your local farmer's market will be fresher, healthier and cheaper than what you get at the supermarket. Not only that, chicks dig farmers' markets. Go every week. Find your local farmer's markets here.

Successful cooking is a blend of two important things: good ingredients and careful, light-handed preparation. Chances are you're naturally inclined to over-season the crap out of things; most people are. You will find, however, that a good cut of meat with a little salt and pepper will beat the shit out of a mediocre cut of meat slathered in K.C. Masterpiece. I recommend Edouard de Pomaine's 1930 classic French cooking in Ten Minutes not so much for the recipes but for the philosophy. Most every preparation in it is "take something, do something to it and eat it." Pomaine demystifies cooking in ways Erma Bombeck and Betty Crocker never could.


Ask at your local nursery what herbs grow easiest where you are and try and cultivate them yourself. That chicken? A sprig of fresh rosemary will make it awesome. But maybe bay or dill or rosemary or something will grow better near you. I guarantee you can grow mint where you are. Mint makes any savory dish better.

Finally, learn to appreciate the art of cooking and eating in and of itself. It's always cheaper to cook for four or six than it is for one or two if everybody chips in; inviting friends over to cook and eat makes for a cheaper meal as well as an evening of entertainment. Always seek out especially good produce, poultry, fish or meat and make it a focus of your cooking. Believe it or not, you can entertain a houseful of people for an evening over the simple fact that the raspberry harvest is in.

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(...and if that fails, you can do what my uncle did in college - he went down to the feed store and sampled. If it was palatable, he'd buy 50 lbs of it, pick the rocks out of it and chow down. If I recall correctly, there's a certain type of buffalo feed that's mostly rolled oats, molasses and vitamins. And rocks.)

(Be sure to pick out the rocks.)

There are several sauce recipes in this old school French cooking book. A lot list flour as a thickener, but of course we could try almond flour or potato starch instead.

http://www.amazon.com/French-Cooking-Ten-Minutes-Adapting/dp/086547480X

For me it was French Cooking in Ten Minutes. Before it, I was fumbling through recipes. It is so brief, lacking detail and had such attitude that it gave me the confidence to just try.

yes, how true, but Joy is like the annotated reference manual for every other cookbook. Personally, the most influential cookbook for me has been the classic French Cooking in Ten Minutes for its attitude and severe lack of detail.

There are loads of dishes that you can cook a pile of that will last several days, but keep it interesting by varying them. Just pick a country at random and google some of the dishes. You won't always have the ingredients at hand (you'll struggle to create an authentic Burmese dish, for example) but Spain, Italy and France all have cheap regional dishes that are easy to make and tasty.

Sounds obvious? Maybe it is, but there are a lot of dishes that are under the radar. So don't do spag bol, knock up Tagliatelle Amatriciana - tomato, bacon, onions and a bit of garlic. Bing bong.

This is also a great source of easy meals: http://www.amazon.com/French-Cooking-Ten-Minutes-Adapting/dp/086547480X

And don't overlook less obvious countries! Finland, for example, has a ton of nutritious and awesome food: http://thedomesticman.com/2014/09/16/nakkikastike-finnish-hot-dogs-in-sauce/