Eat Well. Do Good.

Looking to reduce your time in the kitchen and your impact on the environment? How about your monthly grocery bill and your waistline? The Cook for Good program offers some smart ideas to make it happen.

The 2007 Food Stamp Challenge dared House members to spend a week eating on the $21 allotted to federal assistance recipients. The lawmakers found themselves hungry and surviving on carbs and highly processed foods. Cook and researcher Linda Watson scoffed at this. She could do better.

Watson's Cook for Good program outlines how to eat well on $1.12 per meal -- or $1.88 if you opt for the organic route. Her guidelines include eating in, taking one or two days to cook for the entire week, and creating well-balanced meals from scratch. You'll be cutting down on transportation and saving an average of $131 compared to the USDA's most thrifty eating estimates, as well as saving eight hours per week in the kitchen and enjoying fresh, healthy meals like kale and onion frittatas or potato-peanut curry. Watson and her husband even reported losing weight on their new, well-planned balanced diet.

Added bonus: Removing the daily quandary of "What should I make for dinner tonight..."

--Jordana Fyne