$10 Dinners

$10 Dinners: Delicious Dinners for a Family of Four That Don't Break the Bank by Julie Grimes, 255 pages

As you may be able to guess from the title, every dish in this wonderfully presented, and wide-ranging, cookbook is costs less than $10 to prepare. That said, the $10 price tag can be a bit deceptive, as some of these dishes can't serve as full meals — unless you consider a 4 oz. chunk of pork tenderloin a meal — but I get the appeal of throwing the $10 label on these for simplicity's sake. Speaking of simplicity, some of these meals are ridiculously simple (like, to the point that my non-gourmet family has already figured out a variation on our own) while I passed on others because of the amount of time it would take to prepare them. While there were definitely a few recipes that I'll be hanging onto, the true value of this book lies in the page of ingredients that belong in a well-stocked kitchen, as well as the brief intro that covers the ways to stretch your dollar at the grocery store.