Simple Recipes

Nutrition and Cookbooks
Originally uploaded by Simply Frugal

As food costs spiraled upwards in the past year, I adapted and adjusted my favorite recipes to help keep my costs down.

I have created a limited shopping list of ingredients, and using that list, I have substituted and eliminated ingredients until I got it down to the least expensive way to prepare all my favorites. All the recipes on this blog that start with "Simple" are adjusted to include only ingredients on the Bare Cupboard Basics shopping list.

To do this, I relied on research I've been conducting since I was in college. The primary source was Joy Of Cooking, by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker. The other main source is the US Government's wonderful publication, The Food Buying Guide.

Over the years, I've delved into a lot of nutrition information. From Francis Moore Lappe's Diet For A Small Planet through Pritikin, Ornish, and Eades, I've tried to learn how to eat wisely, packaging as much pleasure, flavor, and nutrition as I could into the foods I prepared.

I've learned to calculate caloric and protein needs for everyone from healthy teen-aged athletes to friends dying of cancer. I can balance fat, carbs, and protein with the best of them

The changes I made in my family cookbook have reflected the best research available, without charging off in dramatically new directions with every headline. My menus reflect my own personal preference for a low-carb eating style.