Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

OK, 80%, not so bad. But I just read "Hot Dog: A Global History" by Bruce Kraig and half of these questions wouldn't have been answered by the reading. I guess I got lucky!
Steve

What a terrific question and a remarkable response. I can only echo the counsel of others: buy basic staples (beans, rice, pasta, peanut butter, spices) over time. Once you've built your pantry, cooking on the cheap is easy and you don't have to suffer dull, uninspired meals. If there is one thing I would recommend saving for it would be a pressure cooker. It makes easy work of cooking dried beans. Soups, stews and chili come together quickly and the extra can be frozen. As others have pointed out, prepping more than you need and freezing it means you don't have to eat the same meal five times in a single week. We buy a box of produce from a local CSA delivery operation ($30 per week) and it's more than enough for two when combined with the staples mentioned above. We also bake our own bread every week saving several hundred dollars over the course of a year. The bread is simple to make - we follow the no-knead method promoted by many recently. We've written about it and the feedback we've received from friends and family is overwhelmingly positive. With all that, I think you can live very well on $50 a week, even in pricey NZ!

Cheers,
Steve

In our home, the Joy of Cooking and How to Cook Everything seem to be most often used. But we rely heavily on Epicurious.com for quick recipe searches.