GrubGirl.

Who: Rachael Ray, host of 30-Minute Meals on The Food Network

What: Her Everything Jambalaya recipe

Why:

1. For solo cooks that don’t have time to cook from scratch every evening, but still want more control over what goes into their meals.
2. The flavors get better over time, so they make for delicious lunch leftovers.
3. This is an easy jambalaya recipe and you don’t have to be a New Orleans native to make it taste great
4. It’ll make you feel as if you’ve accomplished more in the kitchen than if you just used a seasoning packet

What: The $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook, by Erin Chase, on sale for $14.99 ($10.19 if you buy from Amazon.). Erin’s the founder of 5 Dollar Dinners, a cheap recipes site that’s gained popularity by creating dinners, well, for no more than $5.

Why:

• The recipes are easy to cook, straightforward, and use healthy ingredients. If I can figure it out, you can figure it out!
• Recipes show the cost of a meal, which serves a family of four (or makes for tasty leftovers for those of you with less mouths to feed).
• Each recipe also comes with a Frugal Fact to help you stretch your food savings and eliminate waste whenever possible.

The only area of improvement I’d suggest is to have more recipe photos throughout the book. However, many of the recipes are old favorites (like the Easy Chicken Potpie), so you should have a good idea of what it’s supposed to look like.

Tested Recipe: I got a chance to use some leftover turkey meat that I’d frozen from the holidays. I’ll probably make another batch of this using some leftover pork tenderloin! The white sauce recipe was simple, and making this from scratch (ok, so there are some frozen vegetables) makes everything just taste so much better.

Sally’s After Dark
300 De Haro St. Ste. 332
415-626-6006

Saturday evening, Sally’s After Dark opens quietly in Potrero Hill. But for those of us who were lucky enough to get a sneak peek at the menu this past week, Sally’s After Dark won’t be a secret for long.

A restaurant within another restaurant, Sally’s After Dark serves dinner Wednesdays through Saturdays from 6-11pm in the same space that houses Sally’s, the brunch joint that has been in Potrero Hill for decades (and is still operating).

Before I start espousing the joys of the food, I’ll also say that the ability to find parking easily beforehand kept me in high spirits as I sat down at the table.

Thumbs up to the Poor Girl Eats Well blog for her fantastic and economical recipes. Not only does she focus on economical recipes, but she makes sure that the recipes are still full of healthy, recognizable ingredients.