Customer Reviews

$3 Meals: Feed Your Family Delicious, Healthy Meals for Less than the Cost of a Gallon of Milk

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

The book is a must in this day and age of food shopping sticker shock. I saved more money than that book cost just using the shopping tips she gives. And the recipes are great, and so easy to follow. Even my kids, who eat hardly anything, loved the Tex-Mex Meatball Soup.

There is no way you could make a whole meal for $3 using any of the recipes in this book. The meat alone in most of the recipes would cost at least $3, more if you weren't shopping sales or at Costco. If the $3 refers to per serving instead of the whole meal, then the book still makes no sense. That means for a family of four you'd be spending $12 for a meal, which any idiot can do without needing a book like this or any special recipes. I'd give this book 0 stars if I could for the misleading title.

I checked this book out from the library before buying it, looking for some meal ideas that were more affordable to feed the family. While I was disappointed that they cost more than she gives the impression of. every recipe so far is delicous! Seriously, I was actually surprised at how flavorful they are. I seldom take seconds, but when we made the pot pie (ex, the crust alone was almost $4) I took one bite and declared they better save me some more. My family cleaned that up, and much healthier than stuff with cream of _____ soup mixes.

We've been eating better, and for far less money, since I bought "$3 Meals" a few weeks ago. I love the fact that she doesn't use any convenience foods that are loaded with chemicals. I didn't realize how much they cost, too. I did her Chicken Pot Pie recipe the other night and it was the best one we've ever eaten.

Now that I'm making muffins and breads from "$3 Meals" rather than buying them at the bakery we're having steak and shrimp for dinner rather than just chopped meat. I didn't realize how much of our food budget was spent on junk bought on a whim rather than real food. This is a great book to really re-tool the way you look at trips to the supermarket.

Although the title is misleading, the book itself is sound. In our fast food world this would be a great introduction to home cooking and the lost art of making food from scratch. Many young people don't even realize that you can make your own salad dressing. I would give this to a kid heading off into the world. We forget cooking is a skill and she presents that skill in a simple to understand format; I especially like the little cooking tips at the end of the recipes. This book was more useful for me as I refuse to eat store bought condiments due to their preservatives even if I can get them free.

The information is great, and I was also impressed by the wit and charm of the presentation. This is a terrific cookbook that offers a wealth of recipes and how-to-save-on-grocery-shopping information for the budget-conscious. And who among us is not budget-conscious these days?