Free Cookbook PDFs (and solar cooking)
A handy reference that costs nothing. Having a hardcopy still recommended.
I didn’t realize I was collecting free cookbooks until I suddenly had a folder and needed to put them all somewhere. I really love having a physical book when cooking and following a recipe. But you can’t beat a free guide that gives you recipes and ideas. Here are the top picks.
1. Good And Cheap
A project created for a Masters degree in Food Studies - the author collected recipes that are affordable by regular people under a tight budget - the equivalent of SNAP / food stamps. The book has several pages on pantry management and buying ingredients in bulk.
The entire book has been published under a Creative Commons “Attribution - NonCommercial ShareAlike” license, meaning anyone can share it and use it for free! You can also buy physical copies.
2. The Scrapsbook
They have removed the original announcement, and you can no longer get physical copies in Ikea stores, but in 2021 Ikea created “The Scrapsbook” to collect recipes about using up bits of leftover food.
“This cookbook is dedicated to cooking with the little things we usually throw away. Or, as we like to call it, ‘scrapcooking’.
Scrapcooking is about finding the beautiful possibilities in that banana peel, radish top, or even the chicken bones you're about to toss, and make the most of everything available to you. It's little things like these that can add up to make a big difference.”
The Scrapsbook has recipes like banana-peel bacon, and soups that use up all of your ingredients. It groups recipes into Breakfasts, Mains, Snacks, and Desserts, and includes tips on how to save and use up foods.
I wish they had grouped all of the ‘saving’ tips into a single section.
Proton Drive link, in case the PDF goes away
3. The Sad Bastard Cookbook
A book to get nutrition into your body with minimal effort. “All the recipes you already make, when you’ve worked a 16-hour day, when you can’t stop crying and you don’t know why”.
Also free to share under a Creative Commons license, the Sad Bastard Cookbook is intended to be easy, fast, tasty food.
It’s quite wordy and sometimes difficult to read the actual recipe. But it’s free, and has some interesting ideas. Page 127 tells you how to make chocolate pudding. Page 129 - Core ingredients to keep in your kitchen. They include weekly shopping lists and menus if you just need some help and really don’t want to think about it.
The Sad Bastard Cookbook (click the big red button to download the PDF)
4. Solar Cookers: How To Make, Use, And Enjoy
Solar Cookers International runs a non-profit to help people learn how to cook healthy food using sunlight. Their goal is to help more people get access to good, nutritious food without needing fuel. This PDF teaches you how to build and use a solar cooker - with several different designs. It can also help to fight waterborne diseases by pasteurizing water or milk.
What Time of Year Can I Cook?
“In general, you can use your [solar] cooker when the length of your shadow on the ground is shorter than your height”.
I am very fortunate to be able to say: this could also make a fun weekend project, or a good challenge camping trip.
Form page to download (the same PDF)