I wouldn't normally review a cookbook I disliked so much, but I received an ARC and feel obliged to.

The concept of <i>Piecemeal</i> is just nonsense to me. It makes less sense in execution. Food blogger Kathryn Pauline breaks recipes up into "components"—a soulless, unappetizing word that reflects how I feel about the entire approach—in some attempt to fix meal planning problems that don't really exist.

The idea: Create a large batch of a single ingredient and use that ingredient to make 5-minute, 15-minute, or 30-minute meals, depending on the amount of time you have throughout the week.

What this looks like in execution: Make a bunch of grilled corn as a base. The 5-minute meal is...seasoned ears of corn. Not joking. The 15-minute meal is corn bruschetta; the 30-minute one's corn chowder. None of these are meals (Would you be happy with only eating two ears of corn for dinner? What about just a bowl of soup?), and despite being called "variations," none of them share common ingredients beyond the corn, so presumably your fridge would need to be stocked with the totally separate ingredients for all three of these meals in order for you to make them throughout the week. I myself can make hearty sandwiches in 5 minutes, and much more substantial, multi-course meals in 30, but this book offers much less, with most recipes scarcely offering up the calories and nutrients necessary to be considered "meals." The problem with meal planning is not that cooking corn is difficult and thus needs to be done separately.

Let's try again with beets. The 5-minute meal is beets with yogurt. 15 minutes: a sandwich. 30 minutes: a beet salad. Again: These aren't meals. When I pictured the flexibility of a cookbook that offered meals in sets of three, I thought the recipes would be linked, using common ingredients that naturally build on each other. Instead, there's no particular theme linking any of the recipes together. Many of them call for hard-to-find ingredients (I've only ever had access to za'atar, for example, when I was living in New York City), making the recipes impossible to cook on the fly, as Pauline suggests we might. These "meals" aren't linked to any particular culture, season, or region, meaning that no one reading this could focus on eating locally while using this recipe book.

Finally, this idea of streamlining the cooking process by breaking food down into "components" just isn't what I want from my homemade meals. There's something about <i>Piecemeal</i> that reeks of corporate food culture to me and lacks the personal touch I look for in good food writing.

Didn’t find as many recipes as I hoped but was so excited my beloved passion fruit was one of main components at end so will try some of them and one of pork recipes as well.

This is a delightful "concept" cookbook which delivers a variety of recipes. The idea to begin with a basic recipe and then suggest more complex ways that it can be incorporated into meals is quite clever. I particularly liked the more vegetable-forward suggestions from various uses for roasted beets to zaatar cauliflower. to miso sweet potatoes. The photographs are lovely, and I would likely recommend this book as a great gift idea for people who are in the earlier stages of becoming good cooks as it will guide them to a kind of thinking that is essential for experienced home cooks.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to review an ARC.

*This cookbook shows how a set of ingredients can be used in different ways. While the ingredients are mostly focused on vegetables, there are meat dishes included. Also, the author includes different methods of preparation. This book would be particularly useful for beginners because it presents a different way to think about recipes and for some seasoned cooks, there may be new ways to use traditional ingredients. The one drawback may be if you don’t like most of the ingredients chosen.

*If you can learn the different types of sauces, these can be used in other ways, as well. Further, the author provides fairly basic fruit recipes; however, there are ways to switch in other fruits and even switch fruits across recipes. I chose a selection of recipes to try. The Chicago deep-dish pizza was delicious and easy and you can clearly switch out ingredients as you would any pizza. The method of using hot water in making mousse for the Black Forest mousse works and would be good for those who are lactose intolerance but isn’t quite as good as using hot cream. For the strawberry rhubarb recipe, you can use all strawberries if rhubarb is not in season.

*The author provides a second table of contents that sorts the recipes in another way if you are particularly thinking about a category rather than an ingredient. The front part of the book includes additional ways to improvise from the recipes provided.

I’ll start this review by saying that I have preordered this cookbook for myself on hardcover. I have health issues so it makes it very difficult for me to make an entire meal all at once and I love the concept of making pieces that you can then make into a meal depending on how much time you have or energy you have or what other ingredients you have. It’s such an ingenious way to write a cookbook. There’s also a lot in the book just in general. There’s a little something for everyone whatever type of cuisine or meal they want. Want a Mediterranean dessert? You can find it. Easy American snack? Plenty of options. Middle Eastern main course? Oh yeah, there’s that too. It’s easy to see why I’m a fan with the variety and tastiness of the recipes. Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself! This cookbook is well worth its price.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and Netgalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed, PIECEMEAL. So many wonderful recipes to try! The hardest part was trying to figure wish one to try first.

Usually when I am reading a recipe book I will screen shot or photocopy recipes I like the look of. While reading Piecemeal, I never stopped, the recipes are amazing!
Fresh ingredients producing fresh and accessible meals, so many my family will enjoy.
I can’t wait to cook from this book and have it in my kitchen.
Recipes I am keen to make are ‘Mujudara’ because lentils and caramelized onions, ‘Meatballs with Mashed Potatoes and gravy’ and ‘Falafel Crumble Pita Pocket’.
This will be a great addition to the library and I know our patrons are going to enjoy it.

This has to be my favorite cookbook lately and seriously it packs a punch. A cookbook designed to pretty much help you get rid of leftovers. With the cost of food lately this should definitely be on your shelf!

What did I like? Grilled corn is absolutely a staple of mine and to see its diversity in a book is awe inspiring to me. The book neatly compounds certain items that can last or change into several different meals. It’s enticing and with food waste as high as it is, we need to embrace it!

Would I recommend or buy! I definitely want a copy! It’s going on my wish list since we know cookbooks are costly. I really enjoyed looking at this idea and what compounds for different meals. I’m sincerely a fan! Grab a copy if this idea makes you curious! Five huge stars!

I received a complimentary copy to read and offer an opinion. I loved it!

I liked the proposed concept of this book. The execution was not quite there. I suppose I was thinking more batch cooking versus cook this and then cook a bunch of other things. The base does provide versatility. It seems to provide more foodie recipes rather than family friendly style. I found that the things my family would eat I already have very similar recipes. This book is best for families with adventurous eaters.

While the concept of this cookbook is interesting and would be extremely useful if executed well, the accompanying recipes don’t really do that. The base recipes aren’t as versatile as one would hope and the recipes aren’t as family friendly as needed.

Cool concept! Multiple recipes using a similar base. Great way to make your leftovers stretch, especially if you get bored of the same thing easily. Interesting way to look at meal prep

Piecemeal by Kathryn Pauline Review TLDR: "When you amass a trove of flavorful bits and pieces, dinner cooks itself." This is the philosophy of the book---prep some exciting components that can be used in a variety of ways to make your meals more flavorful.

Now for the details:
I loved this cookbook! The organization of the recipes not just by component (base recipe that is used in the 3 additional recipes), but by category was very helpful. This is in addition to a large index in the back, so you have three ways to find recipes you want.

I also really appreciated that the author took the time to list the weights of "Commonly Used Produce Sizes" in a chart at the front, that way the reader knows when she says one medium tomato, she means 150g or 5.25oz.

The set up is not so much for meal prepping a bunch of meals for the week so much as meal prepping components that you can use to make more interesting dishes from what you already have. Think of it like meal prepping more pantry staples, only most items can go in the freezer to be used as needed. Will I make a meal solely out of marinated beets or caramelized tomatoes or goin (garlicky emulsion that was new to me)? No. Will I now be keeping them on hand to upgrade my basics? Heck yes. This cookbook is a similar vein as "This Will Make It Taste Good" by Vivian Howard in that way.

The author gives a lot of spins on things and even 5 min back up meals, which are nice for a busy mom of two young kids.

She also does a great job of listing the storage time and how to store, with most items keeping well in the freezer for 3 months.

Cons:
The tagline is slightly misleading with its use of meal-planning , as 1) not all the recipes are meals---many are more like heavy appetizers or even sides and 2) you're not planning meals, you're prepping components (flavor enhancers, things to base a meal around).

I received an advance digital copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I will definitely be purchasing my own copy once it's out!

Piecemeal is the perfect meal planning cookbook for home cooks like me who sometimes have trouble sticking to a meal plan. It's laid out with using one ingredient to create a 5, 15, or 30 minute recipes that allows you to pivot your meal plan without food waste, which is something that I love.

I think Piecemeal is going to be a useful cookbook that will encourage adaptation and experimentation. Kathryn Pauline gives a recipe for a component and then provides three recipes in increasing degrees of complexity that utilize that component. The components range from “leafy herbs” to “turkey spinach meatballs,” to “Mulled wine pears.” The sections are Vegetables, Meats, Dressings and Sauces, and Fruits, compotes, and curds.

After the table of contents, Pauline has helpfully broken the recipes down by type so that if you are looking for soup, you don’t have to search through the components. The section on how to use this book is very good. I particularly appreciate her tutorial on using the freezer, because I am a chaos gremlin when it comes freezing foods.

I like the middle ground that Pauline has staked out between meal prep cooking and chaos cooking. I tend towards chaos, but that often means throwing out things that have gone bad because you only needed half the amount sold in the grocery store for the one recipe you planned. Component cooking means I can make all of the thing I bought, but eat it in different ways through out the week.

The tag lines are, “a meal planning repertoire with 120 recipes to make in 5+, 15+, or 30+ minutes” and “30 bold ingredients + 90 variations.” I am not a huge fan of assigning time values to recipes, and in this case I think it’s a bit more misleading than usual, because the time to cook the component isn’t factored in. But that’s a pretty small complaint for a book I think is quite useful and usable.

I received this as an advance reader copy from Chronicle Books and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, honestly and freely given.

This is a great cookbook idea! The main sections of the book are divided by vegetables, meat, and fruit. Then each section has a base recipe (such as roasted eggplant, beets, compote, etc) that can be eaten as is or incorporated into recipes that follow.

I made a strawberry rhubarb compote that then went into a sponge cake with whipped cream that was delightful. There are also recipes to mix thee compote with whipped cream or into a pastry.

I also made za'atar spiced cauliflower that I put into a lentil salad. I wasn't sure about this recipe as I was making it, but the flavors came together nicely.

Overall, I found this cookbook valuable not only for learning some new, unique recipes but also for getting me to think about how I can take this approach more with my own recipes too!

One of the biggest surprises and struggles of adulthood is the never-ending question of what to have for dinner. This is a book for the home chef who is just tired of deciding, or needs some ideas to spice up their routine! I love what Pauline does here: by making this one fairly straightforward staple item, there are 3 (or more) possible recipes to make with it. Eggplants were on sale this week? Start with Smokey Eggplant and morph it into a quick Baba Ganoush, or if you have more time, try for a Chicago-style Deep Dish pizza with the eggplant playing a starring role. I like the idea that there are many possibilities, but Pauline takes some of the decision-making effort by offering three clear choices. On a personal level: as someone who doesn’t love eating meat and can’t have gluten, I was pleasantly surprised at how many of these recipes naturally fit into my food needs, and those that didn’t could generally be easily modified to fit. The recipes are all written in paragraph form, rather than numerical steps. They are fairly simple to understand but it can be easy to get lost between stages.

Based on the cover, and to some extent the description, I was expecting a cookbook where I'm told to make, say, a large batch of roasted/seasoned cauliflower florets, and I use half "tonight" to make, say, tacos, and then I use up the rest tomorrow (or another day) to make a casserole, or a soup, etc from them... In other words, I was expecting this idea that I'm getting multiple meals out of my efforts...

To some extent the book does this, but IMHO it reads more like so many other cookbooks where to execute a single dish I have to make multiple recipes; it is just presented here as a different concept (but really isn't all that different).

Here's an example...

You make 4.5 cups marinated beets (30+ minutes). Once prepared you can serve them as an appetizer with yogurt (5 minutes; uses 1.75 cups), serve beet reubens (15-minutes, requires making a dressing and sandwich things; uses 1.5 cups), or a chopped salad (30 minutes; uses 1.5 cups).

With the Za'atar Cauliflower (15+ minutes; 6 cups), the 5-minute recipe uses all the cauliflower and adds some garnishes. The 15-minute recipe (a salad) also uses all the prepared cauliflower. The 30+ minute recipe is a burrito, which again uses the entire batch and also requires me to make a salsa.

Another example, you prepare miso sweet potatoes (15+ minutes); the 5-minute recipe adds some garnish to it like lime juice and sesame and uses all the potatoes, the 15-min is a "bowl" with grains, broccoli, and a dressing you need to make; also uses all the potatoes. 30-min recipe is brownies which also uses all of the potatoes.

To include a meat recipe, you make coconut shrimp (I don't eat shrimp so I can't guess the cooktime) the 5-min recipe uses the batch plus adds a sauce, the 15-min uses the batch to make tacos, and the 30min uses the batch to make a curry with rice.

I think what irked me the most is that the majority of "5- minute recipes" aren't really meals IMHO. I can't serve marinated beets, corn on the cobb, garlic bread, or cauliflower florets (or coconut shrimp if we weren't vegan) to my family as a meal. I also found it strange that things like salads and burritos--meals I often make because they are fast/easy were the 30-minute options... Anytime I saw a 30-minute sandwich or salad I thought to myself "lady, you're doing it wrong."

It is worth nothing that the "5-minute recipes" also can't be made until your "base thing" is made which takes much longer than 5 minutes. For example, to make the 5-minute beet recipe (literally just beets, yogurt and oil) I have to do a 30+ minute marinade of beets before I can do it. Similarly, all the corn, garlic, and eggplant recipes require grilling/baking etc for much longer than 5 minutes before I can execute the 5-minute recipe.

OVERALL, #toomuchwork None of these recipes were realistic for me, a "busy home cook" who needs to "prepare delicious meals simply in 5+ 15+ 30+ minutes."

I also didn't like that most recipes served a huge crowd and not 2-6 servings. I happen to like leftovers but 8 burritos is just too much.

Other 'complaints': Not a lot of new ideas here: tabbouleh (do we really need more recipes for this), corn soup, baba ganoush, garlic bread, garlic hummus, omelets, french soup,

There were, however, some recipes that I think would be new to most people such as

To end on a positive, things I liked:

- The author was thoughtful towards vegans and vegetarians; suggesting how to adapt some dishes. To thgat extend, I'd say most of the dishes could be made vegan with vegan substitutes such as Just Egg, vegan cheese, vegan meat).

- excellent tips for storage with every recipe

- beautiful photos for every dish and "base recipe"

- suggests other recipes in the book to use/incorporate/substitute/pair


My ARC copy had the smallest font on the planet; I hope the final version is better.

Thanks netgalley!

I love to cook and meal prep, I was already familiar with a lot of concepts found in this book, but there was plenty to learn even for someone familiar with it!

4-4.5 Stars
A one-of-a-kind cookbook that includes some gorgeous photos of each recipes (more than 100). The concept is a great idea, the book is organized extremely well, and the author provides lots of notes, suggestions, and substitutions/alternatives. The ingredients and recipes range from common to extraordinarily exotic. I love that the recipes c9me from all around the world too. For food aficionados.

Net Galley Feedback

This is a beautiful book and it's filled with recipes that are somehow both impressive and simple. They can nourish your body in the quiet moments of life and make even the most discerning dinner guests admire your kitchen acumen. Love the variety and global flavors.