The Frugal Paleo Cookbook: Affordable, Easy & Delicious Paleo Cooking Paperback – December 2, 2014

Firstly, the binding is fantastic. It's done in such a way that the pages open nicely while you are cooking. The photography is fantastic as well. The dishes look delicious but I'm still skeptical about the "affordable" part of some of the ingredients. I mean, yeah, you can do plain ground beef instead of grass feed and things like that but reading "grass feed' or "free ranged" every single page feels kinda pompous. You don't need to do that every single page. Most people who do the paleo thing know the whole "oh it's soooooo much better if you do these free ranged, non gmo, organic, omnivore, no preservative, whole chickens!" so you we don't need to see that every single page. It's like going over to your overly zealous vegan friend that's a fantastic chef for dinner. Yeah, the food is great and you want to know their secret, but you could do without being lectured to about how all those dairy products are killing you every time you take a bite. I just think the beginning section was where all of the "you should try to get this type of sourced meat!" parts should go. Other than that it was fantastic. I'm just deducting one star for that.

I'm relatively new to the Paleo lifestyle, and I'm on a budget. The Paleo lifestyle can be daunting when it comes time to ring up your groceries. I know because I have a handful of Paleo cookbooks, and while I admire the artistic chef-like way that other Paleo authors recreate traditional comfort foods using tons of almond flour, coconut flour, and other expensive Paleo staples, I just can't afford to eat that way right now. This book is different in that it goes easier on that kind of stuff, and as a general rule, tends to focus on meats, veggies, and the like. You need a Paleo friendly fat to cook with and a few recipes call for coconut aminos, flaxseed meal, or arrowroot powder. I think that's incredibly budget friendly. Sorry, but if you're looking for a cookbook that has a bunch of three and four ingredient recipes, this isn't the book for you either. That being said, most recipes are under ten ingredients. I have a well stocked spice cabinet because I'm already a confident, adventurous home cook so my shopping list tends to be reasonably short for most recipes in this book. There are all kinds of categories in this cookbook: beef and lamb, poultry, pork, seafood, eggs, vegetables, and basics. I think anyone, Paleo follower or not, could get something from this book. The basics chapter is great. It contains lots of seasoning blend recipes. Since my spice cabinet is stocked, I can blend up several seasoning blends now, and when time is short and I can't meal plan, it will be easy to season a protein and grill it or roast it on short notice. I was also pleasantly surprised to find a handful of crockpot recipes. Out of the Paleo cookbooks I own, this one is the workhorse on my bookshelf. If Ciarra publishes more books along this theme, I will be pre-ordering them!

I'm getting to have quite a collection of Paleo cookbooks, but I'm happy to say that this looks like it will be a valuable and well-used addition. This book isn't padded with lots of front-material. It assumes that you already know what Paleo means for you or you will get that information elsewhere. She provides brief, practical suggestions for making meal-prep easy and affordable.Best of all, not only did looking at the pictures make me want to try many of the recipes, but when I read them, I actually have the ingredients on hand to make a fair number of them without a trip to ANY store, much less a specialty store. And when I read through her spice-mix recipes, I had most of the individual spices on hand. The only ones I don't have, I don't have because I already know that I don't care for them. This is HUGE. I don't have to find and buy some exotic new ingredient for every recipe I want to try, never to use the rest of it if I don't like that particular recipe.I'm really thinking that many of the recipes I see here will be making frequent appearances on our table because they are easy enough and affordable enough for "everyday" cooking. And now to go take some ground beef from the freezer. The beef stroganoff is calling to me for tomorrow night's dinner!There is only one thing I want to note. The print could have been a bit bigger and darker. I know from experience that I will need my reading glasses during allergy season, but this will probably not apply to 99% of readers.

I’m new to eating Paleo, coming from a Whole30 plan, and before that was the all-you-can-eat pizza diet. So I’ve approached Paleo with an open mind and have been pleasantly surprised at the recipes we’ve had. I saw this book in the grocery store and figured Amazon had a better price (I was right), so I ordered it online.So far we have had 3 recipes: hard cider braised brats (p. 106), aloha sliders with pineapple relish (p. 95), and teriyaki stackers (p. 43).Each of these recipes was really good and accepted by the kids (teens). The prep work wasn’t extreme, the instructions are clear, and the results have been fabulous. The aloha sliders may have been the best meal I’ve ever eaten.The biggest complement I can give this book so far is the depth of the flavor in the food. The ingredients work together like nothing I’ve ever had before. I get excited about dinner when I know it’s coming out of this book, and for a guy no longer eating pizza, that’s a really big deal.As for recommendations, I’d say it’d be a great investment if you’ve got someone (especially a pizza loving overweight male) who needs healthy food that’s good enough to look forward to and make it worth sticking to a diet.And if a word of caution is worth mentioning, I’d say to be sure to follow the recipes carefully. The flavors blend well, so if you substitute stuff, you could make it less awesome.

Recommend to everypne

Some good ideas but not realistic in its recipes for the UK

The recipes in this book all have a photo to go with the recipe, very helpful.Tastes, easy recipes.

I just got the book the other day and absolutely love it. The recipes are easy to put together and very yummy. I look forward to getting more cookbooks by Ciarra Hannah

Excellent book. Recipes are very tasty and quick and easy to make.