People are constantly looking for ways to stretch their money in the wake of rising food prices. During sweeps week on TV, one of the big stories was about ways to save on groceries. Clark’s already shared ideas about couponing, brand substitution and more at the supermarket.

But people who know how to cook can save even more. Recipe websites that teach you how to make easy meals from cheap ingredients are becoming increasingly popular. Suddenly, cheap is chic!

To Clark, “cooking” simply means putting something in the microwave and changing the temperature of it. The Los Angeles Times, however, reports many recipe blogs have seen their page views more than double in a year. These are the kinds of sites that were routinely being ignored during better economic times.

Christa has long used sites like Epicurious.com and Recipe.com. But now there’s a huge network of stay-at-home moms who share their money-saving ideas on the web. See below for Clark’s guide to the cheap food preparation blogs!

Just remember that even if you can’t figure out how to make a masterpiece worthy of Julia Child, simply making food at home costs a fraction of what it takes to eat out. For those who can't cook, you can always be like Clark and buy your favorite frozen meals on sale. He recently picked up a slew for $1 a piece. They’re not anymore unhealthy than his normal fast food fare, but instead of $4 he’s just spending $1/day.