Save-It-Forward Suppers: A Simple Strategy to Save Time, Money, and Sanity

“It’s exhausting to cook an entire meal from the ground up every night. Stop that!” implores Kane (best friend of Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond) in her cheery debut. Her solution is to “save” ingredients “forward,” by preparing food with the idea that it will be repurposed for different dishes as the week progresses. Recipes are organized into 15 weekly meal plans, each of which hews to a weeknight dinner theme; during “Shortcut Week,” for instance, she relies on premade ingredients—such as rotisserie chicken and refrigerated pizza crust for stromboli—to get dinner on the table quickly. Readers will enjoy Kane’s inventive ways of revitalizing leftovers: remnants of buffalo chicken taquitos during “Effortless Party Week,” for example, become baked buffalo chicken dip a few days later. In “Ancient Grains Week,” she starts with chicken Milanese, and then repurposes leftovers to make chicken Parmesan over creamy polenta. Kane’s witty commentary (“If you are a civilized sort, you will eat this as a salad with a fork,” she says of the marinated corn and artichoke dip) and amiable instructions (“Throw these ingredients into the slow cooker... and run out the door,” she writes of her Irish corned beef) make for amusing encouragement along the way. This will be a lifesaver for busy home cooks. (Mar.)