The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A-Z

by Tamar Adler, Caitlin Winner (Illustrator)

*A National Bestseller * Most Anticipated Book of the Year by Vogue and more *

Award-winning author Tamar Adler's inspiring, money-saving, environmentally responsible, A-to-Z collection of simple recipes that utilize all kinds of leftovers—perfect for solo meals or for feeding the whole family.

Food waste is a serious issue today—nearly forty percent of the food we buy gets tossed out. Most of us look around the kitchen and struggle to use up everything we buy, and then when it comes to leftovers we’re stuck. That’s where Tamar Adler can help—her area of culinary expertise is finding delicious destinies for leftovers. Whether it’s extra potatoes or meat, citrus peels or cold rice, a few final olives in a jar or the end of a piece of cheese, she has an appetizing solution.

Here, in An Everlasting Meal Cookbook , she offers more than 1,500 easy and creative ideas to use up nearly every kind of leftover—and helpfully explains how long each recipe takes. Now you can easily transform a leftover burrito into a lunch of fried rice, or stale breakfast donuts into bread pudding. These inspiring and tasty recipes don’t require any precise measurements, making this cookbook a go-to resource for when your kitchen seems full of meal endings with no clear meal beginnings in sight. Organized alphabetically and filled with foods across the spectrum—from applesauce to truffles and potato chip crumbs to cabbage—this comprehensive guide makes it easy to flip through so you can find a use for all types of unused food.

Sensible, frugal, and consistently delicious, the recipes in An Everlasting Meal Cookbook allow you to prepare meals with economy and grace, making this a vital resource that every home cook needs.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction, Reference, Food and Drink, Adult

543 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 14, 2023

Reviews

[Bonnie DeMoss · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great cookbook that is more than just recipes for leftovers It shows you how to use every kitchen scrap to create delicious meals. It even tells you about greens growing in your yard that will make great dishes. This is a detailed, comprehensive guide to food and cooking that will make sure that nothing is wasted, you will eat well, and you will save money doing it.

I received a free copy of this book from the publishers via Netgalley. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

[Emmalita · Rating 4 out of 5]

The good news is, I don’t have to write a cookbook. The other good news is that you can buy Tamar Adler’s The Everlasting Meal Cookbook, Leftovers A to Z and have a better cookbook than I would write. It isn’t a coffee table book filled with artfully photographed food. It is an enormously useful cookbook that suggests uses for almost everything sitting in your fridge or pantry.

As much as I love cookbooks and spend hours reading recipes, I rarely actually cook from recipes. Tamara Adler’s suggestions work just fine for me. This is the rather loose and variable way I cook. For people who follow recipes exactly, Adler’s flexible recipes might induce some anxiety. I still think this would be an excellent cookbook to have in the house regardless. Who hasn’t been faced with aging, forgotten fruits and vegetables? Adler will give you ideas for using the whole celery bunch.

My housemate often exclaims in wonder at my ability to make leftovers interesting. I usually just shrug and say I like to cook. She pointed out one night that her late husband liked to cook too, but he hated leftovers. So I thought about it and realized that I don’t think of food as leftovers. I think of food as ingredients. I even after a lifetime of making meals out of what I have on hand, The Everlasting Meal Cookbook gave me a lot of ideas about how to reduce the amount of food I throw out even more. Now is a good time to bone up on making food stretch, and this cookbook will help.

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a blast to read! I garnered many idea of ways to use leftovers. Some sound interesting, others, well,…. Cole slaw soup might be pushing it. It seemed fruit, veg, grain and bean focused but all those have dairy/meat component so I would not consider this healthy. As a licensed dietitian, I have experience and education to back up that statement. I obtained some inspiration and plan to apply what I’ve learned here and refer back in the future. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC

[Hannah Farmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t usually sit down and read cookbooks, but this one is highly enjoyable and often laugh-out-loud funny. I never thought I’d laugh at descriptions of cabbage before.

I checked this out from the library, but I’ve been raving about it so much, I hope it will be a Christmas present!

[Danielle McClellan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think that it is an exaggeration to say that Tamar Adler's revolutionary 2011 book of essays, An Everlasting Meal, deeply affected the way that I approached food. Over the years, I have continued to incorporate many of the ideas that she set forth about economy, avoidance of waste, creative use of leftovers, and transformation of ingredients into my daily cooking routines. Even today, years later, thanks to Adler, I wrap up the smallest amount of leftover salad dressing or sauce to use in my next meal. Adler's philosophy, which can be described as a nod to and a riff off of MFK Fisher's "How to Cook a Wolf," has now spread fully into the culture, but, like Alice Waters with her early emphasis on finding local, organic food, Adler was one of the first proponents of zero waste and purposeful use of ingredients that might at one time have been thoughtlessly tossed out.

Now, Adler's dictionary of suggestions for cooking up leftovers or vegetables/foods past their prime, based on the ideas of her original book of essays, will soon be available. I appreciated the chance to read an early review copy of this book, and I found many of her suggestions to be creative and clever. Part of me wishes that Adler had published this practical guide sooner, as I would have found it most helpful in the early days of my cooking journey, when I had fewer tricks up my sleeve, and before the internet made it easy to find suggestions for using fading ingredients or leftovers. But, certainly, better late than never. I can imagine that this food dictionary will be a great shelf reference for cooks working towards reducing waste in their own kitchens and learning a number of essential dishes and concepts that can be tweaked to fit whatever is in the fridge. This would be a particularly wonderful gift, paired with the original book of essays, for any person who is interested in thoughtful, purposeful eating well on a budget and honoring the food that comes into their life.

Thanks to the publisher and to Netgalley for making an early review copy available in exchange for an honest account.

[Alisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This speaks to the soul that I inherited from my great grandmother’s depression era habits. This book has suggestions for how to use up literally any kind of leftover food you can think of. No promises on how useful some of these ideas actually are (make dye out of avocado pits), but awfully handy for if it pains you to throw out that last bite or two.

The recipes here rely on you having leftovers from other recipes that are not in this book. Eg you made ceviche and now you have leftovers that are not quite enough for a second meal / you don’t want to eat leftover ceviche (brine can be used in a marinade, fish can be used to make fried fish cakes). But wait there is more! Recipes for if your fruit is hard and green or you waited a few days too long, what to do with the peels, etc etc.

I think my favorite chapter was sauces to make with empty containers (making honey mustard vinaigrette with an empty mustard jar is fairly common knowledge but what can you do with an empty bbq sauce bottle?).

I loved the author’s voice - a touch poetic, a bit of sass (“Bananas, overripe: You know what to do with overripe bananas. This recipe is here in case you discover that you have misplaced the banana bread recipe you usually use.”).

Such a great reference, and definitely something I will use in my weekly quest to defeat the vegetables.

[Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

In THE EVERLASTING MEAL COOKBOOK: LEFTOVERS A TO Z, Tamra Adler offers a comprehensive resource in using up all manner of food scraps and leftovers. As someone who isn't creative enough naturally to know how to repurpose kitchen and pantry items as I tire of them in their original state or they are at the end of their life, this is a welcome source of inspiration. Through gentle and chatty guidance, readers will appreciate her instruction ("Taste for salt and eat, in astonishment").

I read this as an ebook, but I expect to add a hardcover to my collection, as I prefer cookbooks I can flip through and break in with food splatters and coffee stains, and this will be a welcome guide, as if I have a friend over my shoulder, teaching me how not to waste but to create new, delectable dishes.

(I received a digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.)

[Anna Stegeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great encyclopedia for what to do with sad leftovers.

[Alicia Bayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a gem of a cookbook! Most of us know basic ways to use up leftovers but Adler takes it to a phenomenal new level. The book is divided into sections for what type of food it is, like vegetables or meats or snacks. There’s even a section of how to use your empty containers for best creative use of the contents still inside. There are recipes, suggestions, you name it, with delicious basic recipes and cooking instructions for all of the ingredients too.

Clocking in at hundreds of pages, there is not room for nutritional information (and the mix and match nature of the recipes makes this impossible anyway) or much in the way of photos. My ARC had gray rectangles in places where I assume photos will be but I can’t speak to their quality.

I also love that it incorporates so many foraged ingredients, from milkweed pods (a long time family favorite here) to amaranth greens to (gasp) pokeweed and more.

Highly, highly recommended.

I read a temporary digital arc of this book for review.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a cookbook for specific people. People who love to read cookbooks, people who are always looking for a new or creative way of not wasting anything, and people who want to learn many basics about food.

I loved it. It has none of my essential decision-making points for buying a new cookbook anymore. I’m sort of a picture nut, like to see a final pic of the outcome. But… I loved it. I loved it for the author’s knowledge of food and of technique. Many ideas were things I might have thought of once upon a time but never carried through.

Do not get the idea that this is a book full of new recipes. It is not. It’s an interesting, almost historic read. Many recipes are somewhat like those my mother taught me. Recipes handed down from her own mother and grandmother during a time when not even a scrap of anything was wasted, the Depression.

It’s a smart book. A way to save money and very practical, even a book to curl up with. A reference book in some ways. A good addition to my collection.

[Raluca꧂ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hate food waste and I'm proud to say that I keep the waste I create at a minimum. Nevertheless, I'm always on the lookout for new creative ideas, so I totally support the purpose of this book and I hope it inspires lots of people. I also appreciate how Tamar Adler encourages us to rely more on our senses and less on expiration dates.

The problem is that, although the mini-essays from the beginning of each food sections are quite nice and you can get some good advice reading the recipes, most of them aren't very appealing to me. They are kind of heavy for my taste, using lots of oil, butter, eggs or sugar. And I don't know if this is just my case, but some of the leftovers are pretty surprising, both in their quantities (who's left with a few cups of chips, a few heads of lettuce or so much cake?) and in their fanciness (I can't see the average individual cooking those kind of sophisticated meals and then not even eating them). Moreover, sometimes it seems that the author just tries too hard and it would be easier and simply better and tastier to eat the leftover food as it is.

*Since I'm a vegetarian, I mostly skipped the meat chapter, so I can't speak about it.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tamar Adler's goal is cooking with absolutely NO WASTE. This book is organized by type of food - vegetables, bread, beans & rice, meat, etc. and then within each section it's organized alphabetically with ideas for what to do with that leftover item. Each section starts off with a short food related essay, although not always about the topic of that section. I'm all about leftovers and not wasting food. When you're growing your own food you're even less likely to waste it because you know all the work and effort that went into growing it firsthand! But, some of her ideas seems ridiculous - repurposing leftover cupcakes? Is that a thing - having leftover cupcakes? I think instead of encouraging eating leftovers and repurposing odd and ends this cookbook feels more like you need to repurpose every part of every leftover into something new. I'm all about eating leftovers, but that's because I don't want to cook every night. Overall, it's a unique idea but I don't know how practical it is especially for a newer cook.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A-Z is a primer and comprehensive pantry resource guide by Tamar Adler. Due out 14th March 2023 from Simon & Schuster on their Scribner imprint, it's 560 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats.

Food waste is a serious problem. Not just from a cost savings viewpoint, but also on a much larger we-need-to-use-our-resources-wisely philosophy This is a masterclass in efficient resource use and the author has a particularly appealing zen-like quality in the way she reasons with the reader and teases the best use out of what most people would consider trash.

This is *not* a pure cookbook, full of recipes. Rather, it is a book of tips and philosophy for prepping, storing, and using every bit of the food resources to which the reader has access. In ages past, up until around 100+/- years ago, every household had a stillroom or pantry book, full of clippings and recipes. These books were often handed down through generations (I have my maternal grandmother's book, which she had from her mother, and so on). This book has very much the vibe of those earlier how-to books with the addition of modern and up to date knowledge and a much more comprehensive waste-absolutely-nothing philosophy.

The illustrations by Caitlin Winner throughout support and enhance the earnest meditative vibe. They're beautifully rustic and complement the content and raise the whole to another level.

The layout is quirky and takes a bit of getting used to. It's arranged in roughly thematic chapters by ingredient groups: vegetables, fruits & nuts, dairy & eggs, bread, beans & rice, soup, seafood, meat & tofu, dough & noodles, salads, and much more (including a monumental chapter on pickling). The chapters are arranged roughly alphabetically by ingredients with tips for using and re-purposing where applicable. It really is a NO waste primer.

The early ARC provided by the publisher did not include the finished index, but there -is- a listed entry for an index in the table of contents, so presumably it will hopefully be as comprehensive as the book's content.

Five stars. This is a *valuable* resource and would be a wonderful selection for public or school library acquisition, gardening groups, community garden library, homestead, and home use. Not photographed, but reasonably well illustrated and complete.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

[Diane Hernandez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Are you looking to lower your carbon footprint and save money as well as the planet by creating less food waste? The average American household throws out almost a third of the food it buys—that’s $3,000 annually right into the trash can. The Everlasting Meal Cookbook has a multitude of ideas to use up food scraps and leftovers to create exciting new meals.

I spend a lot of time googling recipes to use up my leftover food. However, this book has many ideas I had never seen before but want to try. Most of us have heard about saving vegetable peelings in the freezer to make broth later. However, how about making a salad by frying leftover rice with Cheetos and eggs as a topper? Or creating wafer cookies with oats and stale popcorn? There is an entire chapter devoted to making sauces with empty condiment jars! The book also includes hints about how to reheat items that are traditionally just tossed, like poached eggs and French toast, when their first usage is complete.

While labeled a cookbook, the book is organized more as an idea generator. There are no illustrations or nutritional information here. Few of the recipes have step-by-step instructions so a certain level of cooking skill is necessary to get the most out of its ideas. What is nice is that the recipes are organized by ingredient. So, for example, all the leftover rice recipes are together making it easy to find what you need.

Overall, The Everlasting Meal Cookbook is a great cost-effective way to feel better about yourself while also saving the planet. That’s a true win-win. 5 stars and a favorite.

Thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for a digital review copy of the book.

[Karen Hancock · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re someone who has leftovers from time to time, you may want to consider picking up a copy of The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Recipes for Leftovers A-Z by Tamar Adler. This cookbook is organized into chapters on different leftovers, such as vegetables, fruits and nuts, breads, dairy and eggs, beans and rice, seafood, meat and tofu, dough and noodles, salads, sauces and dips, pickles, etc., drinks, snacks, and sweets. That seems to cover about everything that anyone could have leftover. Items contained in these chapters are listed, and there are recipes and ways to use up whatever you have.

Unfortunately, there are only illustrations, and no photographs. It is not a book to peruse and find fun recipes to prepare for a special meal or for a fun family dinner; rather it is one that cooks will refer to in order to find something to do with whatever happens to be available.
This is more of a reference book rather than a cookbook, and as such is full of good information that will be useful and save money on meals.

The recipes aren’t in traditional recipe format; they aren’t difficult to follow, but not as most of us are used to. It isn’t one of those cookbooks to curl up in a corner and read. It does have some good ideas to use up rather than throw out small or larger amounts of ingredients or dishes.

All told, this is a good reference to have on hand.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

She will be in conversation with one of my favorites, Bee Wilson next week locally, so I wanted to read something by her. I started with the only available digital one first, the cookbook which is based on her essays of the same name, which I want to get my hands on before then. I'm also rereading Wilson's book that I own.

This is an ingenious cookbook, what to do with the leftovers whether it's the peanut butter at the end of the jar or a leftover trifle or fish. The intermissions with just a bit of text were enough to transport me, so I can't wait to get my hands on the original essays and meet her next week.

"Buy fruits in their seasons when you can. Then, youc an eat as many as you want when they are neither overripe nor underripe. If the season begins to turn, and you haven't eaten your fill, freeze some for winter. Or combine a few cups in a pot with sugar and pectin for jam. Then spend the cold months in a state of ripening desire. This fosters a healthy lust for each fruit in its turn and keeps you from wasting time resenting fruit."

"One choice is to rely on the functionality of the egg. Eggs turn anything into a meal."

"'Bring salad or sausage or scrapple / A berry or even a beer. / Bring an oyster, an egg, or an / apple, / As long as it's something to eat.' Ogden Nash."

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the idea of not wasting where you can avoid it, and this cookbook has a lot of good ideas on that front. The author's prose is also enjoyable to read, and in addition to recipes organized by ingredients, she also has general principles about how to approach certain types of food.

There's a lot of emphasis on leftovers, which is interesting, because for me at least leftovers are just eaten as they are. I do enjoy cooking, but in a household with two working adults, the effort of revitalizing leftovers is a use of time that doesn't always strike as necessary. Adler's frugality with using every smear of grease in a pan or peanut butter in a jar is noble and will no doubt resonate with some, but I would guess most will accept the minimal waste.

That said, I'm grateful to have a compendium that is more rather than less exhaustive than I need it to be. When I have ingredients that I don't know how to get rid of, this is the first place I turn to convert them into a good meal; an ebook edition makes searching easy. (Adler has chosen to use a "whatever I felt like" titling method, so you don't know whether to look up "peaches, overripe" or "overripe peaches.") Some comfort with improvisational cooking akin to that taught to home cooks by Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and similar is helpful to make full use of this volume.

[Dione Hanke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wasting anything that is food or attached to food could be over - just use this cookbook.

The Everlasting Meal Cookbook could reduce your food waste to almost nothing. I had no idea that you could use shrimp shells to make something like shrimp stock or SHRIMP SHELL AND POTATO CHIP FURIKAKE. Who knew? I thought they were simply trash. This cookbook takes anything you would buy at the grocery store and uses all of it -vegetable stalks, tough outer leaves, etc.

If you cooked something and it is under cooked or over cooked - do not throw it away - check this cookbook and use it to make something else. This cookbook is divided up into groups like vegetable, seafood, meat, fruit & nuts, etc. Do you have something that is stale or over ripe - do not throw it away - it can be used. Empty bottles can be used before they are thrown away - ketchup bottle, BBQ sauce bottle, etc. Butter wrappers make great baking pan greasers. Just find the appropriate chapter and lookup the left order - everything in is alphabetical order by chapter.

Buy this book and be amazed.

[Dione Hanke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wasting anything that is food or attached to food could be over - just use this cookbook.

The Everlasting Meal Cookbook could reduce your food waste to almost nothing. I had no idea that you could use shrimp shells to make something like shrimp stock or SHRIMP SHELL AND POTATO CHIP FURIKAKE. Who knew? I thought they were simply trash. This cookbook takes anything you would buy at the grocery store and uses all of it -vegetable stalks, tough outer leaves, etc.

If you cooked something and it is under cooked or over cooked - do not throw it away - check this cookbook and use it to make something else. This cookbook is divided up into groups like vegetable, seafood, meat, fruit & nuts, etc. Do you have something that is stale or over ripe - do not throw it away - it can be used. Empty bottles can be used before they are thrown away - ketchup bottle, BBQ sauce bottle, etc. Butter wrappers make great baking pan greasers. Just find the appropriate chapter and lookup the left order - everything in is alphabetical order by chapter.

Buy this book and be amazed.

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to buy The Everlasting Meal Cookbook right after I returned the borrowed library copy. I needed it!

It's not the usual cookbook and quite frankly, I normally would have passed over this one. It's dense (like a Bible) and the recipes are written in the old style. There's no photographs. But, it's genius!

Have a bit of couscous leftover? Add it to pancake batter with a bit of herbs and vegetables for a savory dish. Or just modify one of her other "leftover" recipes like a couscous version of Fried Rice or a couple of salads. (These are all suggestions with page numbers.)

Egg salad setting in the fridge? Turn it into Egg Salad Quesadilla or Egg Salad Fried Rice.

We're nearing the holidays and here's her take on leftover fruitcake:

Two strange facts entwine in the case of fruitcake. 1) There is always some left. And 2) it never goes bad. I recommend slicing what is left very thinly and then toasting and buttering it heavily, and sandwiching in things with strong flavors like Gorgonzola cheese and fig jam, or marmalade and cooked bacon, or thick slices of good brie, and then eating it as a snack with a few sips of mid-afternoon sherry, or a cup of very strong tea. There will still be some left, of course, but you will run out in time for the next fruitcake. (486)

That definitely elevates it. With her suggestions, I would just plan on these little bite-size appetizers for my New Year's Eve party.

There's not much that isn't mentioned for utilization here. Leftover (and almost wilted) iceberg lettuce can be cooked in a stir fry (Grace Young's Stir-Fried Iceberg (54).

I can't wait to utilize this book to the fullest. I whipped up some Granola Cookies (487). I don't know if it was the leftover granola I used (homemade) or her actual cookie recipe, but these were delicious. It's a simple and traditional cookie recipe with butter, white sugar, egg, vanilla, flour, baking soda and cinnamon. 1/2 to 1 cup of granola is used and you can further elevate the ingredients by adding shredded coconut, chocolate chips or raisins. I added low-sugar mini-chocolate chips and dried cranberries to mine.

Seriously delicious.

Ironically, I froze most of this batch so we wouldn't gorge ourselves. (They freeze beautifully, btw.)

I wonder what I can make with those leftovers?

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was given an advanced egalley of this book thanks to Netgalley and the publisher. What drew me to this book was that I had read Tamar Adler's earlier book The Everlasting Meal. I've had it on my bookshelf for years and admired her thoroughness. Flipping through this book on my kindle I loved the chapter titles "How to be Renewed", "How to Grow Old", etc. This book is a great reference to how to use up the random odds and ends. Carrot tops? She's got a recipe for that! Left over french fries? There are two options! It didn't take me long before I realized that this was a book I was going to need in hand on my cookbook shelf. We often eat three meals at home as a family and my husband loves to use our leftovers creatively. I immediately pre-ordered and I can't wait to gift it to him for Father's Day.

[flourgirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Everlasting Meal Cookbook by Tamar Adler is a different kind of cookbook. This is specifically geared towards reducing food waste and repurposing leftovers and food scraps into delicious alternatives.
Pros:
Useful recipes for about anything edible under the sun
Great ideas for leftovers and scraps
Delicious ways to bring new life into old standbys

Cons:
May be intimidating to new or beginner cooks
Some ideas are a tiny bit off putting (i.e. scraping mold off jams and tasting the jam underneath)

Having made it my goal to reduce food waste, I thought I was good at using up food scraps and leftovers, But she introduced me to new ideas and I can’t wait to try some of these.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinions.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

My rating is not a reflection on the quality of this book; I think it probably does what it intended to. It lists food by category (dairy, etc.), and within each category it lists…everything imaginable. Cherry stems, leftover mapo tofu, leftover peas, old pita. There are useful suggestions for wilted vegetables, etc. The idea of going through a book to look up specific leftovers feels onerous.

This just doesn’t speak to the way I cook. For one thing, I like leftovers just the way they are. They get better over time! Leftover mapo tofu: microwave it and enjoy. Leftover peas: throw into your next creation.

I don’t remember why I requested this from the library, but I’ll return it for someone else to enjoy.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an incredibly useful - and thorough - guide to using up leftovers. It's really well organized, and Adler's intros are clear. You don't even really feel like you're eating leftovers - these are totally reinvented recipes using things you already cooked.

It's not a beautiful book, but I think it's a good resource to keep around. Not only does it help reduce food waste, usually when you're reinventing food that's already cooked, it's faster and easier. Most of these included ingredients most people would have on hand (though some of the initial leftovers she recycles are pretty exotic). And it would help to be familiar with the book, or at least the kinds of things you usually have leftover, to know what to keep around.

This belongs in every cook's kitchen.

[Eadie Burke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great cookbook to use up every kind of a leftover. It's organized alphabetically and makes it easy to flip through so you can find a use for all types of unused food. It's a book for people who love to read cookbooks and a smart book to save money and even a book to curl up with. It's perfect for solo meals or for feeding the whole family. Food waste is a serious issue today. Nearly forty percent of the food we buy gets tossed out. Tamara offers more than 3,500 easy and creative ideas to use up nearly every kind of leftover. I loved reading this cookbook and gaining new ideas. Thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for a copy for an honest review.

[Audrey Marcusen McMacken · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect early birthday gift the day after the publication date!!! I love to cook but even I occasionally get tired of answering the perpetual "what's for dinner?" question. I'd been in a rut of the same few things and a bit more takeout than my household prefers (quality, packaging waste, cost, all the reasons).

Nothing like a great cookbook read cover to cover to inspire a home cook. And this one did that and more. I try hard to not waste food (seeing some of the things I do with bottom of the chip bag crumbs in writing made my heart happy) but don't always succeed. This was a motivating and inspiring read that I'll reach for anytime Ieftovers that aren't exciting just reheated.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This cookbook has over 1500 recipes and has one for just about any leftover you have. Now you can easily transform a leftover burrito into a lunch of fried rice, or stale breakfast donuts into bread pudding. These inspiring and tasty recipes don’t require any precise measurements, making this cookbook a go-to resource for when your kitchen seems full of meal endings with no clear meal beginnings in sight. Organized alphabetically and filled with foods across the spectrum—from applesauce to truffles and potato chip crumbs to cabbage—this comprehensive guide makes it easy to flip through so you can find a use for all types of unused food.

[Drea · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Alice Waters and Samin Nosrat blurb a cookbook, you pick up the cookbook —- and I’m so glad I did!! What a gem. Not only is this a guidebook of recipes for utilizing leftovers and foraged ingredients, it’s also a resource for things like how much zest can you probably get from a lemon or how much is a medium stalk of celery - 1/2 cup. How WONDERFUL for shopping planning to not waste! This will be a trusted source in my kitchen and a PERFECT gift for anyone. Fabulous! Thanks to Simon and Schuster for the advanced copy. What a gift!

[Siobhan Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Epigraph: “A man was cleaning the article of an old home in New England and he found a box which was full of tiny pieces of string. On the lid of the box there was an inscription in an old hand: ‘String too short to be saved.’” — Donald Hall

In the ‘Buttermilk, Spoiling’ section, Adler writes: “Oh, stop. I waive legal responsibility, but I don’t discard buttermilk unless it’s growing vicious green or blue mold. If you share my sentiments, shake it and use it in your biscuits or chicken brine.”

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like her “Everlasting Meal”, this cookbook is a treasure trove of ideas for whipping together a meal from what is at hand and to be not afraid of making more than one meal needs.
I often re-purpose leftovers into ingredients for a totally different meal but Tamar is totally inspired in the scope of possibilities.
After a cursory survey of this cookbook, I let it go for the others holding for it and placed myself back in the queue. It is also going on my birthday wish list.