20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not realistically possible for $3, May 7, 2009
This book does a brief overview of how to save money at the grocery store (nothing really new). It goes on to present a major money saving strategy -- making every sauce, stock, dressing, and marinade from scratch. From there, the author presents recipes for main dishes. She finishes with recipes for baking breads and muffins from scratch.
The recipes are sound, and I have no doubt that they will produce reasonably healthy and tasty results. But...
#1 -- there is no reason to make every sauce from scratch. With sound couponing and savy shopping, I can get a bottle of bbq sauce for free (same for salad dressing, bottles of marinade, etc). If I make those things from scratch (and I frequently do), it is a question of quality, not cost.
#2 -- the main dishes presented are not complete meals. Most of them require additional side dishes (vegetable, fruit, and/or starch) to complete the meal. Beyond a passing mention of a crispy salad and fresh bread, the author does not provide any assistance in how to complete the meal and stay under budget. No ideas for inexpensive sides are provided.
#3 -- many of the recipes are not make-able for the advertised $3 pricetag. Unless I were to catch the fish myself, I simply do not see how I could make a dish calling for a pound and a half of bass or cod for a total cost of under $3. Nor could I make a dish that calls for 2 bulbs of fennel along with a pound of chicken and come in at that price.
#4 -- the serving sizes are a bit unrealistic. Most recipes call for 1 to 1.5 pounds of protein (beef, fish, chicken, or pork) and will serve 4 to 6 people. For six people, that's a 4 ounce portion of protein. Admittedly that is the recommended serving for many, but it is not enough for some men-folk and growing boys.
#5 -- virtually none of the sauces/marinades/dressings presented in the beginning of the book are used in the remaining recipes. so what are they for?
I think this book does have some good points, and a lot of good basic recipes. It presents some of the information and tools needed to control grocery budgets, but not all of them. If the author intended to present meals that were under $3 per serving, she succeeds. However, her book implies that it is $3 for SIX people... an unrealistic and unrealized promise. If I caught all of the ingredients on sale at their lowest price of the year, I could conceivably make most of them for under $6 each. If I were shopping on an average day, many of them would come closer to $10.
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22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Misleading Title, May 26, 2009
Based on the title of this book, I was eager to see how I could spend so much less money on meals for my family. $3 for dinner! Not until halfway through the book, in the introduction to a recipe, do we find out that the title refers to $3 PER SERVING, not $3 for the whole meal. With four of us in our family, that's $3 times four, seven days a week--making $84 per week spent on dinner alone. Heck, I spent less than that before reading the book! Of course, the book's premise that if you make everything from scratch, you will spend less and eat better is true, for the most part, but who didn't know that already? The recipes are fine, but nothing extraordinary. Save your money by not buying this book.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not $3 meals, $3 per serving, April 27, 2010
I already spend around $8 normally to serve dinner to my family of 2 adults and 4 children. I was interested to see what recipes the book presented for $3 meals. It was clearly advertised as $3 meals not $3 per serving. After getting 1/2 way through the book wondering why all of these meals seemed impossible to make for $3, there was a passing mention of "$3 per serving". Completely misleading title and jacket material. I would never have bothered with a book that tells me how to spend $18 per dinner to feed my family of 6. That is ridiculous.
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