If there is none on the shelf, then it’s safe to open a new jar or can. It has cut down on the wasted food a bit, but note important, it keeps more room for the really important stuff, like beer.

Amazon has “used and new” for $0.19, but I suspect that shipping would be considerable. Other places to look would be bookfinder.com or local book sales. It seems to be one of those cookbooks that often appears used.

Another technique is to cook once every few weeks and freeze things. That way you can plan your buying and make sure to use up all you have. In extreme cases, you can use freezer bags to store the leftover stuff (I’ve done that sometimes with orange-juice concentrate).

-limeade
http://fiscalmusings.blogspot.com

Adding your own herbs and stock makes the tomatoes much more versatile too. You can use them in Lebanese, Italian, Greek dishes and more.

Also, a good and frugal alternative to jarred sauces to to use canned tomato sauce and add your own herbs, spices, etc. Ounce for ounce, canned tomato sauce is generally far less expensive than jarred pasta sauce. Fewer preservatives and less sodium, too.

And I’m very impressed that you know about polenta! It’s my favorite food in the world, fixed right.

Even when im only planning on eating/making a little pasta + sauce, I use all of it, throw it on the pasta afterwards and let it ‘marinate’ in the frige overnight. Its wonderful

Great post

Lasagne would be a good way to use up that sauce…I usually use two full jars of sauce for a batch of lasagne. And if all the mozzarella, ricotta, and Parmesan of the Italian-American style lasagne sounds too high-fat, you can make authentic Italian lasagne instead, which only uses Parmesan and a little Bechamel sauce (white sauce made with butter and flour) in addition to the tomato sauce.