No Recipe? No Problem! How to Pull Together Tasty Meals without a Recipe by Phyllis Good is currently scheduled for release on May 11 2021. Cook anything without a recipe—just let the ingredients lead the way! This book 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.

No Recipe? No Problem! is not a recipe book. It is a collection of information, stories, and ideas that will make those looking to be more creative or inventive in the kitchen. This book encourages thoughtful and sustainable cooking, respecting ingredients and reducing waste as much as possible. I liked the stories from Good's cooking circle, reading stories of successes, and failures, in the kitchen from others makes the prospect of trying things yourself much less intimidating. I have always been one to alter recipes that i am comfortable with- like meatloaf, spaghetti sauce, or muffins. However, less familiar recipes often make me more nervous about substitutes or additions. This book helped me consider cooking methods and ingredients, and how I can better create my own unique creations and take a more mindful approach in the kitchen, and in my grocery shopping. There is instruction- particularly how to best cook certain foods, and some suggestions for things that go together well. I also liked the tools and tips given that help with meal prep and freezing certain components or entire meals. I just wish this book had come out before the pandemic and related lock downs, because now that I am back to working on site rather than at home the nightly cooking is back in the hands of my wonderful husband- which means I do not get to dabble and try new things in the kitchen nearly as often.

No Recipe? No Problem! is a good read, and a wonderful resource to becoming more comfortable, creative, and mindful in the kitchen.

I thought that this was a very unique and intriguing cookbook concept, so I just had to give it a try and I'm happy I did. I'd consider myself at least a moderate level cook, so that is what my opinion is based off of. I really liked the concept behind this book. I think it serves as a good jumping in point for novice cooks and nice blend of helpful/fun for everyone up to a moderate skill level. I think the very best thing about this book is that it encourages you learn some basics and then encourages you to let yourself relax in the kitchen and learn to take some chances along the way. So I guess what I'm saying is I kind of think of this book as training wheels for cooking. It will help you loosen up in the kitchen and gain some confidence in your culinary skills. As for the recipes, I felt there was a nice variety of the basics. You will find ideas for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. In the end, I wouldn't say that this is a must have cookbook for everyone, it will be very handy and helpful to some. It is just going to depend on your skill level and your openness to learning to fly by the seat of your pants as you cook.

No recipe? No Problem! by Phyllis Good
How to pull together tasty meals without a recipe

Great book for novice cooks and those that have been cooking for awhile ~ I can see this as a wedding gift or purchased to take home to read for new ideas to use when creating meals for family and friends.

What I liked:
* The illustrations: photos and art
* Easy to follow directions
* Layout of chapters/information
* Approachability for novice cooks
* New ideas
* Charts
* Essential techniques for each type of food
* Hints from the cooking circle
* Ideas on how to dress up food and what to do with leftovers
* Innovative ideas within categories – thinking outside the box
* Seasoning information
* Basics with variations
* The three questions to ask yourself when cooking “Freestyle”
* All of it really…

What I didn’t like:
* No nutritional information available or calories but a basic book so one would need to figure these on their own most likely.

Did I enjoy this book? Yes
Would I buy it for myself or as a gift? I would

Thank you to NetGalley and Storey Publishing for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

In No Recipe? No Problem!, Phyllis Good explains how to prepare a variety of dishes with whatever ingredients you have on hand. She teaches essential cooking techniques, such as how to stir-fry, sauté, or braise, and she provides general templates for how to prepare different types of dishes, such as pizza or frittata. Scattered throughout the book are recipe suggestions and helpful tips from her circle of friends.

I liked the emphasis on using fresh produce and minimizing food waste. If you have a productive home garden or a CSA share and want some new ideas for how to use up all of that produce, this could be a good resource.

The organization of the book may make it a bit challenging to use as a reference. If you have the Kindle version, you can search on specific ingredients or dishes, and you can highlight or bookmark favorites. If you have a hard copy, you should be able to use the index. The index wasn’t available in my review copy, so I’m not sure how thorough it is.

If you’re an absolute beginner, this style of cooking might feel a little overwhelming. If you’re very comfortable in the kitchen, you might not learn much new here. If you have at least a little bit of experience cooking and want to expand your skills and your confidence improvising and experimenting in the kitchen, this is a good choice.

I was provided an unproofed ARC through NetGalley that I volunteered to review.

What a great idea for a book. No detailed recipes with ingredients you need to go and shop for, here you simply use the ingredients you have in your pantry to whip up delicious meals.
Covering a variety of topics from cooking methods to quick and easy sauces this book is possibly almost compulsory reading for any aspiring home cook.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me the chance to read this book.

No Recipe? No Problem! Is a cookbook that focuses primarily on building confidence in the kitchen. It focuses on getting you comfortable with a number of cooking techniques that can easily be used and adapted to go with a number of dishes,,sides and vegetables. You are encouraged to gain confidence with the techniques and then begin to experiment with substitutions...

Great book with some really good recipes. They are user friendly and easy to follow with ingredients which are easy to obtain.

Enjoying making some new dishes from this book.

This would be a good cookbook for new cooks or those who are expanding their repertoire. It's an interesting conceit to bring together friends to share experiences in the kitchen. Much of this is fairly basic but it's valuable for those days when you look in the pantry and think-hmmmm. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

This is a really interesting idea for a book and I'd be interested in purchasing this personally to spend more time with it. There aren't exactly pages of recipes like a traditional cookbook but instruction on how to come up with recipes based on items you have. This book is kind of teaching you how to cook which is really cool!

Provides guidance for learning how to cook intuitively without recipes. Helpful inspiration including tips on how to find inspiration, prepare in advance, cooking techniques, storage ideas, and how to be less wasteful in the kitchen. Highly recommend for anyone looking to increase their cooking skills.

I have a lot of cookbooks and love to cook. (Well, I love to eat, so...lol.) My sister asked me during a short visit from out of state to teach her to cook. We didn't learn kitchen skills growing up; I taught myself as an adult. The things she wanted me to teach her are things I make by taste and texture more than a recipe, and she was frustrated because she wanted a recipe. It was difficult for her to understand that I often start with recipes and adjust them over time to what I want.

There are some fantastic "cheat sheet" pages for best cooking methods and techniques. Once someone learns the basics of making some dressings and sauces, they can make almost anything work. This cookbook is unique because each section gives some basic "grid" and instructions for how to wing it. For example, the section on sheet-pan meals has a page of ingredients that work well, divided by types. Then there is a page of general instructions followed by a page of tips. There are some specific recipes in each section as well, which can be adapted by substituting things in the grid.

I will still use my tried and true recipes, but this book provides a lot of ideas and alternatives. I think this book could be overwhelming for a new cook, but if you focus on one section at a time, this can be a really handy resource for learning to cook without relying on a recipe.

Possibly the only cookbook you’ll read from start to finish, "No Recipe, No Problem" is one of the best references for the kitchen newbies could ask for.

This comprehensive guide for beginners aims to help cooks learn basic skills and techniques while also providing insight on how to craft your own recipe and wing it in the kitchen. The ultimate gift for kids moving out of the house and living on their own for the first time, "No Recipe, No Problem" also has plenty of inspiration and new ideas for the seasoned cook and would be helpful for people of any skill level.

Unlike most cookbooks, "No Recipe, No Problem" is not the kind you take to the grocery store or copy ingredients from and follow to the letter. In fact, you’ll rarely find any measurements or hard-and-fast rules within its pages at all. Rather, any included recipes are free-flowing with only a few steps, and provide plenty of substitution ideas and ways to change or expand, making it the type of book you open as you gaze into your fridge and wonder what you can put together with leftovers and the few remaining veggies you have until you can get to the store. Meanwhile, the charts scattered throughout will surely be dog-eared by many readers and used often to check cooking times, appropriate temperatures, and the best methods for preparing particular ingredients.

Smartly organized and accompanied by bright, beautiful photos, the best part of all may be the inclusion of multiple perspectives. Throughout the text, readers will come upon the various authors weighing in on different topics and dishes based on their own food backgrounds and preferences, creating well-rounded advice for every taste, skill level, and situation. This surprisingly wide scope is so thoughtful, it makes me wonder why all cookbooks aren’t multi-authored.

With such a flexible approach, there are ideas for any type of diet or palate. And although there are many tips on how to cook meat and utilize dairy, there are also suggestions on how to make things vegan or vegetarian sprinkled throughout.

I rated "No Recipe, No Problem" 5 out of 5.

Thank you to Netgalley and Storey Publishing for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

Beautiful food photography!

This is probably more for beginner cooks, albeit those who are now fairly adept at following simple recipes and possess basic cookery skills,, but that’s not to say seasoned cooks cannot pick up some tips.

I quite like the conversational format of the book with the Cooking Circle’s tips and stories from their own kitchens. Chuck’s story about the chicken feet was a little bit too much though! And I’m not a veggie.

Lesser known USA terms:

Arugula - rocket
Garbanzo beans - chickpeas

Worth mentioning that I think these could have been altered for the UK market.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.

I absolutely love this book! It shows the very basics of cooking and describes the hows and whys for those who are new to cooking in general or those who have always used recipes. I love that it shows the pictures of what the different ingredients or tools are as well as the best way to prepare.

This attractively illustrated book will give inspiration and reassurance to beginners in the kitchen, or to cooks who freak out without a detailed recipe to follow to the letter. The author’s circle of consulting friends chime in throughout the text with motivational comments and anecdotes about how some culinary improvisation or other saved the day. It was’t clear to me why a manual on improvisation needed to be quite so long; surely the guidelines to making, say, a salad could have been condensed onto a page or two, followed by a few photos of examples, instead of a whole long section. I found much of the advice self-evident and excessive—even if you’ve somehow never put together a salad, you have no doubt watched the procedure at one of those Sweetgreen-type places, or at the very least seen a salad at some point in your life. Similarly, there are three recipes (really) for how to boil an egg. On the other hand, one of the chicken-cooking guidelines breezily offers a one-line mention that you can tie up the bird if you prefer, without any further explanation. Someone who needs 3 pages of egg-boiling instructions is probably going to need a little more guidance on whether and how to truss a chicken.

Everyone, including the confident home cook, is likely to find some useful tidbit of advice somewhere in these pages (I had never thought to freeze a whole lemon for later zesting), but the book will be most valuable for new cooks who need encouragement to exercise their imaginations in the kitchen. For them, the author is a most reassuring guide.

Thanks to Netgalley and Storey Publishing for a digital advance review copy.

No Recipe? No problem! is the book that will help inexperienced cooks become more confident and experimental. It would be an ideal addition to the usual student cookbook given to young people heading off to university or leaving home. It helps move someone from laboriously following recipes to an environmentally conscious improvising cook using up every scrap of food in the fridge.

It is a practical no-nonsense guide at a time when cookery shows generate great revenue for products and gadgets by hidden marketing. We do not need to be followers of recipes and celebrity chefs. We just need to adapt the simpler way of making meals described in this book.

Thank you Netgalley for a free eBook in exchange for an honest review.

As a "wing it" type of cook, this book was probably not written for people like me!
Thanks for the opportunity to preview the title!

No Recipe? No Problem!: How to Pull Together Tasty Meals without a Recipe by Phyllis Good
Publisher: Storey Publishing
Genre: Cooking, Food & Wine
Release Date: May 11, 2021

No Recipe? No Problem!: How to Pull Together Tasty Meals without a Recipe by Phyllis Good is the book I've needed my whole life!

This book explains the concept of "Freestyle Cooking" using 3 main questions: What am I hungry for? What do I have on hand? and How much time do I have?

14 improvisational cooks shared their ideas with the author to be included in this book as tips and tricks.

When I cook, I either loosely follow a recipe or when I feel comfortable with the dish, I get creative and just start throwing stuff in the pan that sounds good. (When I bake, I'm more strict with the recipe following stuff.) After reading this book, I feel more confident in my haphazard cooking style.

The tips in this book seem so obvious when you think about it (like keep food in the house that your family likes) but when combined, this makes a great resource!

I really look forward to implementing the tips in this book! It's a great read!

I'm so grateful to Phyllis Good, Storey Publishing, and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this ARC ebook in exchange for my honest review.

I have been using this book to help with my teenagers cooking. They were obsessed with following a recipe to the 'nth degree and this helped them have the confidence to experiment.

I was given an advance copy by the publishers and netgalley but the review is entirely my own.

Just thinking out loud here, but I can't seem to figure out who the audience is for this particular book concept? If the concept of No Recipe? No Problem is to be prepared to wing it in the kitchen, wouldn't a person who just throws things together skip the book altogether? The basis of the book is a "cooking circle" assembled by author, Phyllis Good. This group is a collection of everyday people from diverse backgrounds (high five for that), but they really don't seem to be an authority on the subject. Seemingly simplistic ideas are presented like wisdom from the sands of time, but really a person could garner the same information by reading the preparation instructions on the box of pasta in their pantry without having to flip to a page in a book. Novice cooks may learn preparation techniques, but in the age of YouTube videos and audible answers bouncing back in seconds when asking Alexa at which temperature to roast a chicken, this tutorial feels clunky and dated.
There is plenty of excellent advice on food preparation and the author does a wonderful job compiling it in one place. However, it is like the instructions of a recipe without providing the ingredients and their measurements. If repackaged and rebranded, I could see this book turning into a useful resource instead of a flip through it once and never open it again manual.