Flexible Modern Recipes That Value Time and Limit Waste
Ratings1
Average rating4
Learn to cook smarter, save time and money, and enjoy great meals crafted from leftovers in this practical and creative cookbook that teaches you to plan and prepare great “second meals.” When it comes to cooking and leftovers, James Beard Award-winner Sara Dickerman believes that there is nothing better than figuring out the right way to reframe a good meal into another, potentially great meal. Second meals aren’t just reheating last night’s dinner. For Sara, there’s excitement in introducing new flavors and textures at the next meal—that eureka moment of fitting ingredients you have into a delicious new framework. In Secrets of Great Second Meals, she inspires use to create fresh, delicious meals using what’s in those containers in the refrigerator. At Sara’s house, re-invention might mean pureeing roasted vegetables into a quick soup, crafting a beautiful salad with some second-day salmon, or stuffing cooked rice into roasted poblano peppers. But unlike other cookbooks that emphasize thrift, Secrets of Great Second Meals focuses on creating inviting, sophisticated, and healthy recipes that are open-ended enough to adapt to what you have on hand. Sara shows how to make the most of your food the way chefs do: by thinking of meals in a more modular way. With a little thoughtful planning, you can look at extra food from one dinner as components to another meal that has already been prepped. Sara provides a list of the top ten most versatile dishes for multiple meals, offers advice on food storage (how to wrap it, when to put it in the fridge, when to freeze it, and when to throw it out), and includes tips on adding freshness and flavor using salt, acids, herbs, and texture. Most importantly, she gives home cooks the tools they need to learn how to improvise confidently. The recipes in Secret of Great Second Meals are meant to be flexible, and Sara gives home cooks plenty of cues on how they can be adapted to fit what in the fridge and pantry for dishes such as: The Frittata: Meatball Frittata with Mozzarella and Tomatoes (extra ingredient: meatballs) The Quinoa Bowl: Quinoa Bowl with Greens, Sweet Potatoes, and Turmeric Cream (extra ingredients: cooked quinoa, roasted sweet potatoes, and cooked greens) The Chicken Salad: Ginger-Scallion Chicken Salad with Cucumbers (extra ingredient: roasted chicken) The Chunky Chile-Laced Soup: Turkey-Vegetable Tortilla Soup (extra ingredients: shredded turkey or chicken and roasted vegetables) Deli Sandwich with a Twist: Hot Ham and Cheese with Dill Pickle Relish (extra ingredient: cooked ham) The Fish Cake: Black Cod Cakes with Cilantro, Scallions, and Tomato Salad (extra ingredients: cooked fish and cooked potatoes) The Pesto Pasta: Parsley and Celery Pesto with Whole Wheat Spaghetti, Sausage, and Broccoli (extra ingredients: cooked Italian sausage and broccoli) The Rice Pudding: Saffron Rice Pudding (extra ingredient: cooked rice) Illustrated with full-color photos throughout, Secrets of Great Second Meals makes re-imagining food for a second meal not just a good, cheap, un-wasteful thing to do, but way of making everyday eating more inventive and enticing.
Reviews with the most likes.
What might I be called? Some would say thrifty. Others might call me economical. I've even been called cheap (in a good way, I think).
All of these are true. I know how to live big on very little.
Secrets of Great Second Meals is perfect for someone like me.
Look at the opening paragraph of the book:
“Hey, have you checked your refrigerator today? Are there any enticing offerings chilling in there? Some rice from takeout the other night? Maybe a few chunks of rotisserie chicken? Or half a bundle of herbs you bought a few days ago and need to use soon? That stuff is golden: those odds and ends are the seeds of your next glorious meal.”
I like this, too:
“I take uncommon delight in putting together memorable meals out of the morsels in my refrigerator: it's creative work with just a hint of virtue embedded in it.”
Some important ideas author Sara Dickerman shares: the secrets of great first meals; how to reanimate (her word) stored food; and when to throw things out.
Here are some facts I learned:
1. The number-one source of leftover chicken in the country is probably supermarket rotisserie chicken. But it's easy to make something similar for your own leftover chicken.
2. Always throw fruit that's on the brink of over-ripeness into the freezer—especially bananas.
3. Look this one up if you often have bits and pieces of leftover cheese: fromage fort.
4. Cook in batches large enough for a future meal, and then recombine them in a different manner for a different meal. Cook simply the first time and add complexity later.
5. A dozen eggs in the house is the best possible setup for a delicious second meal.
6. How do you make something out of nothing? The author shares egg moves, soup moves, salad moves, and carb (bread, tortillas, pasta, rice, or potatoes) moves.
7. The author notes that she tries to “rethink the classic casserole mentality.” For example, “no canned soup was injured in the making of this cookbook.”
Okay, but what about recipes, I can hear you ask. Does this cookbook have recipes? Judge for yourself:
Black Bean Tacos with Mushrooms and Scissor Salsa
Meatball Frittata with Mozzarella and Tomatoes
Mustard-Kissed Chard and Gruyère Galette
I love to read cookbooks that inspire my creativity like this one.