“Secrets of Great Second Meals: Flexible Modern Recipes That Value Time and Limit Waste” by Sara Dickerman (William Morrow, $30).
Growing up with a frugal mom, who never let a spare morsel go to waste, Sara Dickerman and her sister used to joke about “the tennis ball of plastic wrap it took to preserve the thimbleful of salmon leftover from a meal” and “the forlorn Tupperware containing fourteen peas.”
Snickering aside, those early recycling lessons stayed with her — even after she began working in restaurant kitchens and writing for cutting-edge cooking magazines. But, convincing others to share her enthusiasm for leftovers — a word that tends to conjure memories of soggy rewarmed casseroles and dried-out doggy-bag dinners — has been a challenge. Now that high-profile chefs have taken up the cause of combating food waste by touting “upcycled” creations on their menus, that task has gotten easier.
Dickerman, a James Beard Award winner, taps into this new mindset with “Secrets of Great Second Meals.” Her strategy is two-fold: make a meal that uses the previous night’s remnants as enticing as the first; and start planning for those extras on the front end. I gave this a try with her spaghetti and meatballs, followed the next night by a speedy meatball-studded frittata enlivened with cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, and two kinds of cheeses. My efforts not only produced two delicious and different back-to-back meals, but the freezable makings for a soup, a hot hero sandwich, or a pizza topping — all covered in subsequent recipes.
Dickerman’s book is full of ideas like this. Braised whole chicken with star anise gives way to ginger-scallion chicken salad with cucumbers; garlicky pork shoulder provides the makings for Yucatecan-inspired pork tacos with pink onions and radishes; bits of planked salmon find a new home in lemony salmon pasta.
You won’t find rigid weekly menu plans here. To Dickerman, that level of structure is too stifling. Instead, she offers us something better: a loose roadmap to good eating, with delicious detours made for improvising that could cure your leftover-phobia forever.
Susan Puckett is a cookbook author and former food editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Follow her at susanpuckett.com.
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