Welcome to the home of the Pantry Cookbook!

The Pantry Cookbook is a free cookbook that teaches how to cook nutritious meals, from scratch, on a budget, when time is short. The Pantry Cookbook has over 130 recipes, including basics like hard-boiled eggs, baked chicken, boiled beans, boiled grain, and sautéed vegetables; classics like beef stew, borscht, and pulled pork; and “Quick Recipes” that can be put together in thirty minutes on a weeknight using ingredients prepared on a weekend. Additional features include shopping lists and menus for a week's worth of meals, an extensive list of substitutions, boxed lunch suggestions, kitchen safety information, money-saving tips, spice mix recipes, ideas for feeding toddlers and other picky eaters, and a complete Thanksgiving menu.



The Pantry Cookbook is freely available as a printable .PDF file, and is intended for use as a fund raiser and as a teaching tool. The book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribute which allows non-profit organizations - like yours! - to publish, sell, and collect royalties on the book, so long as the profits are used to support programs that address hunger or nutrition issues.


Would you like to read the Pantry Cookbook on your computer right now? It's free.  Click here!

Would you like to print copies of the Pantry Cookbook? You will have to pay the printer, but the files themselves are free to use and ready to print.   For basic printing, you will need two: the all-text black-and-white book interior, and the full-color cover.  Those files can be taken to a local or an online ("print on demand") printer to create a 7 x 10 inch book.  If you wish to print only a few copies, I recommend CreateSpace.com.  For larger print runs, you may get a better deal with a local printer.

Would you like to sell copies of the Pantry Cookbook to raise funds for a non-profit organization that addresses hunger or nutrition issues? You can!  The Pantry Cookbook is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribute which allows non-profit organizations - like yours! - to publish, sell, and collect royalties on the book, so long as the profits are used to support programs that address hunger or nutrition issues.

Do you want to just purchase a copy for yourself? You can do that, too! Click here.  These copies of the cookbook are printed through CreateSpace.com and sold through Amazon.  I get a few dollars per book sold this way, which is nice.


You might be wondering how I am making any money if I am giving away this book. The answer is this: I'm not, with the slight exception of the sales through Amazon.com. The Pantry Cookbook was conceived as a means to help the patrons of my local food pantry. This book represents a year of volunteer work, and I don't expect to make any serious money from it. The Pantry Cookbook is my gift to the world. Please enjoy it, and if you find it useful, please share it and promote it. Send your local food bank a link to this page, “like” the Pantry Cookbook on Facebook, or be spectacularly awesome by purchasing a copy and passing it along to an organization or individual that needs it.

Here's my Spokesperson. . .

This is my daughter Kaylee, showing off my box full of copies of the Pantry Cookbook.  I'll be mailing these to the nice folks who gave me help and encouragement on the project, plus various family members.  The remainder will be sent to food banks.

Would you like to buy a copy of the Pantry Cookbook?

You can!  The Pantry Cookbook is now available at amazon.com for $9.85.  While it isn't necessary for you to purchase a copy - I am, after all, making it available in .PDF format for free - if you buy a copy, I make a whole three dollars!

The book is a soft cover, and I'll post photos of it shortly. . .

Now Available!

The final version of the Pantry Cookbook is now available!   It is free, for your viewing or printing pleasure.  The files can be found at Google Docs here.  For quick and easy printing, grab the Cover and Inter .PDF files and use them to make a 7 x 10 book, with black and white interior on white paper, at CreateSpace.  Printing at CreateSpace is easy - just make an account and follow the directions for publishing a book.

If you prefer to do something a little more complex, such as adding text to the book interior or cover, or using your own cover art, you can do that as well with the other files.  I will explain those later. . .

Update. . .

I am now making the final, minor tweaks to the Pantry Cookbook.  I will be proceeding from here directly to publication.  Once the book is out of my hands again, I'll be putting more attention into this blog and the Facebook page.  In the mean time, sorry about the mess.  Stay tuned!

Cookbook publishing, round two!

The Pantry Cookbook has been uploaded to CreateSpace for the second, and hopefully final, round of reviewing.

I am so ready to order up a box of cookbooks and call it a wrap!

"Never index your own book."

That's a quote from Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut.  I have no idea how I can retain that absurd bit of trivia from a book I read once, fifteen years ago, but it stuck with me.  And now that I have first-hand experience with indexing my own book, I understand what a profound and beautiful statement it is.

Argh argh argh I'm in index hell!

Okay, so it''s not all that bad.  I just hoped and expected to have the last imperfections ironed out a few days ago, and another proof copy ordered up by now.  But the index is the primary way by which many cookbook users find things in a cookbook, so I'm going over mine as thoroughly as I can manage, when I am awake enough not to mangle the job.

On the bright side, the proof copy is darned pretty.  I'll get a photo of it posted soon, so that folks can see what they're getting.

Among other things that this last (cross my fingers) revision has fixed were mis-spellings, an improperly numbered chapter heading, the addition of a substitute for page numbers, and one recipe that got lost between drafts one and two.