Cookbooks

My newest creation, Good Enough, is a self-care cookbook that offers personal and vulnerable storytelling, delicious recipes, and encouraging advice to teach you how to accept yourself, love yourself, and find peace through the act of cooking. Learn more about it here!

Good and Cheap is a gorgeous cookbook for people with limited income, particularly on a $4/day food stamps budget. The PDF is free and has been downloaded more than 15,000,000 times. For more info, see All About Good and Cheap and Donation Impact.

Now in Spanish! Ahora en Español! Bueno y Barato es un libro de recetas maravilloso para las personas que se puede gastar un promedio aproximado de $4 diarios, particularmente las en el programa federal estadounidense que se llamaba cupones de alimentos. Un PDF, de acceso gratuito, ha conseguiedo mas que 15.000.000 descargas.

My first cookbook! From Scratch is a vegetarian cookbook intended for people just becoming comfortable in their own kitchens. The price for a print copy is a little higher than you might expect because this book is printed on demand (1 copy at a time) rather than in bulk.

Edmonton Cooks is a little different from my other books — it's a love letter to my hometown of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Instead of my own recipes, it features more than 75 recipes from the city's best restaurants, which I collected with the help of my co-author Tina Faiz. If you're from Edmonton or know someone who is, you'll love it — and it makes a great gift!
33 Comments
Hello Leanne!
I absolutely love your Good and Cheap cookbook! I read that you are expected to have a Spanish version in 2017. Do you know approximately when? How is the book being translated? Do you need additional help? (I’m fluent in written and spoken Spanish!).
Please let me know!
Miryam
Hey Miryam, it should come out late Spring so hopefully we’ll have it by June! We are all set for it, it’s already translated and is just in the editing/design/printing phase now. So excited!
What a wonderful, generous idea! As someone who’s been on both ends of the spectrum – a struggling single mom for years, trying hard to feed her (now-grown) daughter more than boxed mac and cheese, hot dogs, and ramen on minimal funds and food stamps – sometimes, even those were difficult to afford and often considered a luxury – to now, with finances – and life – being much less of a struggle, I think it’s tremendous, how you’re assisting a huge segment of the population which need the help living within their too-limited means. This would be fantastic to be a stock giveaway at food banks and social services offices all over and how I wish I had the means to help fund something like that on a larger scale! In the interim, when I’m able, I’ll make a donation and try to spread the word about your inventive and much-needed project! Thanks for being someone who thinks of others so generously. : )
hi Melissa, thanks for the kind words! We are doing just what you suggested with the project so not to worry 🙂 If you want to see where the books have gone up to now here are the details: https://www.leannebrown.com/impact/
We’ve worked with almost 1400 different organizations and have got over 200 000 books into the hands of folks who could really use them.
Thank you!
I cook for a Food Pantry at a community center and would love to distribute copies of this marvelous book to our participants. I see you have discounted prices for non-profits, but am wondering if there’s a way to hook into any of the groups who are distributing free copies. I’m also very interested in getting the Spanish version for some of our participants, when that comes out. I do see that you have a free PDF, which I can tell our participants about, but the physical copy would be much more usable for them. Thanks for any leads you can give. And thanks for doing this book. Holy cow, it is a great thing.
Hi Terese, Happy to connect you with our distribution partner. Please email me at leanne@leannebrown.com and I’ll connect you!
What needs to be done to get your book on SNAP website?
Great book. Thanks so much for giving back. I notice your book was missing from the SNAP website; how can we Help?
Your book was so wonderful that I ordered one for myself. That one would be given to someone else that needed it was astonishing. You seem to be the most selfless, giving person. God bless you.
Thank you Kim, that is very kind. But it’s not possible without the help of the amazing team at my publisher, Workman and all kinds of generous supporters.
I would love to give my older fixed-income mom a copy of this! Are there any plans to make a large-print version available?
I’m afraid their aren’t any plans for that, but feel free to write to my publisher at goodandcheap@workman.com and if they get enough requests maybe it’s something they could do in the future.
Hi Leanne,
I’m an English student from Germany and would love to translate Good and Cheap into German. However, I have no idea how I’d go about combining a translated text with the pictures and general layout. How did that work with the Spanish translation? Did the translator just supply the text or did they format it as well?
(I’m also not sure how I’d calculate the prices, for example when a spice is needed which is obviously sold in larger quantities than called for in the recipe.)
Greetings from Germany
Johanna
(Not quite sure why the internet decided to delete all my paragraph breaks in that comment, sorry about that!)
Perhaps I can help there – my first job was translating manuals, and I can still create a consistent layout over several chapters/parts.
Could you now write a Good and Cheap for family/kid friendly meals, lunches, snacks, kids helping to cook in busy and/or single parent families.
And all cheap of course, and good too, and easy for kids to make to help out. Heaven knows how many future RDs you might inspire.
Hi Janey, I have definitely thought about it! I think I might need to gain a bit more experience with kids, but it’s on the long list 🙂
Why does the Spanish version have twice as many pages as the English version? Also will part to be available in pff soon? Thank you for thinking of this and your wonderful generosity.
Hi Marguerite, the Spanish version has all the new recipes that the 2nd edition has, while the English is still the first edition. Hopefully I will be able to release the 2nd edition in English at some point too!
I am excited to find this resource and start using it myself. I run a free food bank and would like to advertise your cookbook to my clients. Do you have a poster or flyers that I can print or that are available to post in the food bank? I think this would be a valuable resource for my clients who are on limited incomes and receive SNAP. (both in English and Spanish)
I don’t have a poster, but you are welcome to just print the book cover if that works for you.
I want to order your book.
Hi Leanne, I love what you’ve done with this project! I especially like that you note how recipes can be changed around for variation, personal preferences, and local/seasonal availability of produce.
I was wondering whether you would consider creating a compilation of crowd pleasing recipes that can be prepared at low cost for large groups? I imagine that plenty of organizations from soup kitchens to campus groups with tight budgets would love your help with healthy, low cost dishes that can be combined into a meal that would hold up well on a serving line.
What you’re doing is wonderful and a blessing to many people.
I just saw you on “the doctors”. Your new book is probably a good idea for my husband and I. We live on disability,and he had a massive heart attack last Sunday. They didn’t expect him to live. We need to eat better and save some money,too!
This is so nice of you. I can’t wait. What a sliver of sunshine in such a hard time.
Hi Leanne, a huge “Good on Ya” from Down Under. I heard you talking to Jonathan Green on Radio National a few Saturdays ago. I am my partner’s barista, bike mechanic and cook, and despite my name, I am a male. My favourite cookbook was Jamie Oliver’s “Five Ingredients”. Amazing how he could conjure up such taste with so few ingredients. Anyway, Amazon.com.au had your book and I bought a copy. It arrived on the day we discovered some bananas that had gone black in the fridge. I found your recipe for Banana Pancakes and that solved that problem. My wife has bought some more bananas … Then we tried your Tomato Scrambled Eggs and they scored another double thumbs up from both of us. Today, the Beef Stroganoff is simmering nicely in the slow cooker. It smells so good, so, “Thank You” for great tasting, easy to cook meals.
I want to express my extreme gratitude for all your work and positivity into this book. I am on SNAP and like to eat healthy which is more expensive than other options. I saw your video on PBS and saved it . I didn’t have money to buy it, but then just today I saw there was a download!!! This makes me so happy and I sincerely thank you. I’m one of the food vulnerable in NY and this makes it easier. Ty
Marly I’m sorry I am so late to seeing this now, but if you happen to see this, send me an email with your address and I would be more than happy to send you a copy of the book.
Hi Leanne,
I’m studying Translation and Interpreting in Czech Republic and we decided to take on a project where we translate the first edition of your cookbook into Czech. At the end we have to give our teacher the original copy of your book and our translation, but unfortunately we cannot find the first edition of your book online. Do you know where we could find it?
Thanks in advance and have a nice day,
Veronika Zychová
Hi Veronika, the cookbook is still available as a pdf right on my website. I hope you found it! https://www.leannebrown.com/cookbooks/
Heard you interviewed on Splendid Table. Got book from library. Love it. Do good and practical. Global recipes, big batch and freeze. Making do and using up – so important now during COVID. I am vegan, and I adapt it to what I eat. Best cookbook ever, for what I want and need from food.