No Recipe? No Problem!: How to Pull Together Tasty Meals without a Recipe

by Phyllis Good

Overview

Cook anything without a recipe—just let the ingredients lead the way! Author Phyllis Good of Fix-It and Forget-It fame and her circle of friends who love to cook are here to help. No Recipe? No Problem! offers tips, tricks, and inspiration for winging it in the kitchen. Each chapter offers practical kitchen and cooking advice, from an overview of essential tools and pantry items to keep on hand to how to combine flavors and find good substitute ingredients, whether it’s sheet pan chicken, vegetables, pasta, grain bowls, or pizza for tonight’s dinner. Freestyle Cooking charts provide a scaffolding for building a finished dish from what cooks have available; Kitchen Cheat Sheets lend guidance on preparing meats, vegetables, and grains with correct cooking times and temperatures; and stories from Good’s Cooking Circle offer personal experiences and techniques for successfully improvising for delicious results, such as how to combine flavors that work well together or how to use acid to draw out the sweetness in unripened fruit. Like being in the kitchen with a trusted friend or family member who delivers valuable information in a friendly, encouraging way, this book will inspire readers to pull ingredients together, dream up a dish, stir in a little imagination, and make something delicious take shape.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781635862584
Publisher:	Storey Publishing, LLC
Publication date:	05/11/2021
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	1,006,991
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Phyllis Good is the New York Times best-selling author and creator of the Fix-It and Forget-It series, which has more than 14 million copies in print. Her cookbooks are beloved for their outstandingly flavorful recipes, which are easy to follow and quick to prepare. In addition to writing her own cookbooks, Good served for 35 years as a writer and an editor at Good Books. She is currently the executive editor for Walnut Street Books.

Table of Contents

Introduction To Freestyle Cooking 9

1 Vegetables 33

2 Pastas and Grains 63

3 Big Proteins 83

4 Sauces 121

5 Bowls 143

6 Salads 167

7 Soups 207

8 Sheet-Pan Meals 241

9 Pizzas 265

10 Eggs 285

11 Toast Toppers and Their Cousins 315

Index 339

Editorial Reviews

03/01/2021

Good (the Fix-it and Forget-it series) returns with a winning guide on how to successfully wing it in the kitchen. This way of cooking, which is to say without a traditional recipe, allows “ingredients lead the way and to improvise.” The book is loosely organized by food type (veggies, grains, proteins) and relies on charts, technique tutorials, and “freestyle cooking ideas” that can be applied to any number of items, based on what’s on hand. There are, for instance, a chart delineating the best methods for cooking 23 different vegetables, a pair of charts for cooking 15 types of grains either on the stovetop or in a pressure cooker, and another series of charts for estimating cooking times for various cuts of meat. Solid primers cover essential cooking skills—sautéing, braising, roasting, broiling, etc.—and advice from members of the Cooking Circle, a virtual community of experienced improvisational cooks, appears throughout (“Grain and pasta dishes are great for a potluck or carry-in”). With its clean design and easy-to-follow instructions, this should be a hit with novice cooks looking to sharpen their kitchen chops. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"Cooking without recipes may sound intimidating, but Phyllis Good offers the confidence and techniques you need to cook great food without tablespoons and cup measurements. Learning to cook by instinct is the best lesson of all." — Kathy Gunst, coauthor of Rage Baking and resident chef for NPR’s Here and Now
 
"Every cook dreams of whipping up delicious meals without a recipe. Those who love cooking chase the dream for creative freedom (and some glory, too!), while those who hate to cook seek ease in the kitchen. No matter which group you belong to, No Recipe? No Problem! is your new kitchen holy grail. With a simple learning map, essential techniques, and all the cheat sheets you need, this cookbook will have you freestyle cooking in no time." 
— Stacie Billis, author of Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner! and cohost of Didn’t I Just Feed You?!

"Good returns with a winning guide on how to successfully wing it in the kitchen... With its clean design and easy-to-follow instructions, this should be a hit with novice cooks looking to sharpen their kitchen chops." — Publishers Weekly

"Gain the confidence to dream up something delicious with both a personal touch and professional tricks of the trade." — BookTrib
 

From the Publisher