Don’t let a tight budget ruin gourmet dreams

Quick look: This book, and the blog that inspired it, are both about “eating great food, and not paying a lot for it.”

What’s inside: “I’m almost always broke, but practically never hungry,” Emily Wight writes in the “About Me” section of her blog, from which the title of the soft-cover book takes its name.

The Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada-based home cook and writer – she blogs at wellfedflatbroke.com – describes eating well when you don’t have a lot of money as “eating seasonally, and making the most of what you have in your pantry and what you can afford.” It doesn’t require expensive ingredients. It does, however, involve careful planning.

Wight offers cost-saving suggestions – such as preparing risotto with a mix of Arborio rice (costly) and barley (cheap) as well as making your own breadcrumbs – and creative recipes that can be made on the cheap. She also provides an honest and humorous account of her approach to home cooking, including vignettes from her own experiences. She mentions growing up in the 1980s and popping “across the border to Washington state for cheap cheese, milk and gas” as well as family vacations with “special” stops at Mo’s Seafood Restaurant on the Oregon Coast for a bucket of steamer clams. Working-class folks with Pacific Northwest childhoods will be able to relate.

Fun, funky and the opposite of highfalutin, Wight discusses farts as well as dining out in France, grocery shopping in San Salvador and getting by in East Vancouver. In her book as well as on her blog, she uses a chatty, casual, and mildly irreverent tone. Look out for a few swear words as she offers practical tips for dealing with picky eaters (particularly kids, like her toddler, Hunter) or stocking your pantry (don’t buy everything at one store). Information and recipes might be particularly helpful for students, 20-somethings, young families or anyone on a tight budget.

Recipes are approachable, unfussy and filling. And they’re presented with a bit of kitsch and whimsy. Look for tchotchkes like pink flamingo and chicken statuettes along with turn-key robot toys in the background of food photos. Recipes are also printed in a muted ruby with titles and toppers in aquamarine and the color of kiwi fruit. They’re divided by ingredients: rice and grains, pasta, eggs, beans and legumes, fish (mostly tuna with some sardines and salmon), pork, beef, fruits and vegetables, flour and sugar.

Expect Spam-Fried Rice, Deep-Fried Sriracha Eggs, Lentil Sloppy Joes, French Bistro Pork and Beans, Broccoli with Tofu and Peanuts, Bread Soup, Peanut Butter Bacon Fat Cookies and Cuddle’s (three-ingredient) Brown Sugar Shortbread. (Cuddles is the name her grandmother gave herself.) There’s also an ode to her grandpa and his Radio Pudding – as well as the simple cinnamon buns he called Horses’ Arses.

Wight’s writing style is free-spirted and refreshing; she’s accessible and doesn’t seem to take herself too seriously.

“It is not about calorie-counting, or waistlines, or me telling you what you should do for your health, because there are enough people telling us what we ought and ought not to do and they can shove it, as far as I’m concerned,” she says in the “About the Blog” section of her site. “I think the best thing you can do for your health is eat lots of vegetables, make foods you like, share meals with people you like, and always have wine.”

What’s not: Most recipes aren’t accompanied by images. But fans of the blog will be happy to see Wight – with blond braids, big sunglasses, purple tights, two-toned blue-painted fingernails, flowered dresses and a T-shirt covered with cat faces. (There are almost as many images of the author as there are of food, and, inexplicably, most of them fade out of focus in the bottom third of the frame.)

Peanut Butter Bacon Fat Cookies

From “Well Fed, Flat Broke” by Emily Wight

“Never discard bacon fat,” Wight writes in the introduction to this recipe. “The slightly smoky, porky taste of the fat makes peanut butter taste peanut-butterier. Bacon fat is not substantially different, calorically, from butter, though if you have high cholestrol or are trying to cut back on your sodium, make this a special-occasion cookie.”

I didn’t have any reserved bacon fat. But I had about ¼ cup of leftover duck fat. It had a slightly smoky flavor, too, so I thought, “Why not?” I used it as well as a couple of extra tablespoons of peanut butter and a shot of whiskey in my dough, a variation inspired by this recipe. The idea was the same: not wasting drippings and getting that rich flavor. The result was a soft, rich cookie with just the slightest hint of roast duck.

Next time I have bacon, I’ll reserve the drippings to make the original recipe, which follows.

1/2 cup bacon fat

1/2 cup peanut butter

1 cup light brown sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch salt

Granulated sugar, for topping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, cream bacon fat, peanut and sugar so that the color of the mixture lightens and the texture becomes creamy. Once it’s there, add egg and keep beating.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Mix to combine well, then slowly add to peanut butter mixture, beating until all ingredients are combined well.

Roll dough into balls about 1 inch in diameter. Place about 1 inch apart on a cookie sheet and press tops down with a fork dipped in granulated sugar.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, and cool for at least 10 minutes on a wire rack before eating.