The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A–Z

James Beard Award winner Adler presents an impressive encyclopedia of recipes for elevated but frugal and environmentally friendly eating. Building on her 2012 essay collection An Everlasting Meal, she offers more than 1,500 recipes intended to reduce food waste by giving new life to everything from wilted cucumbers and old garlic to leftover escargot. For Adler, unused ingredients and remainders are an opportunity, and her philosophy proves infectious. Cores and leaves of cabbages and cauliflowers, for example, are not to be squandered; instead prepare an “any vegetable” sabzi or minestra. Cube leftover Halloumi and fry with olives, chili flakes, and herbs. Rewarm fried oysters and add them to a Remoulade-sauced omelet. What to do with leftover guanciale ends? Make classic pasta All’Amatriciana. And for something sweet, stale cookie crumbles get a chocolate-covered makeover as “cookie clusters.” Recipes run the gamut in international flavor profiles, techniques, and sophistication, occasionally requiring some harder-to-source ingredients (fenugreek, eel, pokeberries). There are also plenty of practical, family-friendly options, and it’s this range that really sets the book apart. Adler’s thorough guide will inspire all levels of cooks to say goodbye to waste and embrace the ABCs of leftovers. Agent: Kari Stuart, CAA. (Mar.)