Save-It-Forward Suppers: A Simple Strategy to Save Time, Money, and Sanity – Transform Leftovers into Fresh Weeknight Meals with Practical Meal Planning Techniques

by Cyndi Kane, Ree Drummond (Foreword)

Meal prep without burnout! Transform leftovers from each meal into a fresh new dish and put a home-cooked dinner on the table every night with 100-plus recipes and 15 easy weekly menus, in this first cookbook by Cyndi “Hyacinth” Kane, often seen on Ree Drummond’s hit Food Network show and blog, The Pioneer Woman.

Foreword by Ree Drummond

Whether you enjoy cooking or not, it can be exhausting to cook a new meal from scratch every single night—especially if you have a family to feed. Batch cooking is a way around this but means that half your meals will be reheated leftovers, which gets unappetizing after a few days. Instead, Cyndi Kane uses her “Save-It-Forward” method to cut down on cooking time and food waste and still feed her family something new every night. She reserves components of each meal she cooks to play a part in her meal the next night, reimagining her leftovers without rehashing them.

In this beautiful, practical book, she provides 15 weekly menus for getting dinner on the table 5 to 6 days a week with as little fuss as possible, and her quirky, chatty tone makes meal prep fun, too. Each week is themed for the sort of week you expect to have, such as No Time to Spare, Mad Skills, and Simple Meats and Veggies. She follows four principles for each meal she puts in front of her family. Each dinner needs to meet the following

delicious (of course!)kid-friendly but not boringrelatively healthybudget-friendlyEach recipe is accompanied by beautiful watercolor illustrations showing the finished dishes and visual menus showing the Save-It-Forward connections between each meal. Some of the recipes (and transformations) included

Italian Sunday Gravy and Pasta (and Lentil Soup with Simple, Cheesy Spaghetti Squash)Skillet Smoked Sausage, Cabbage, and Potatoes (and Breakfast-for-Dinner Burritos)Stuffed Peppers over Pasta (and Italian Frittata)Shrimp Packet Dinner (and Cajun Chowder)Italian Beef Tips (and Mexican Beef Stew)Readers will feel like dinnertime superheroes with these low-stress, super-practical, time-saving meals!

Genres: Cookbooks, Nonfiction, Food, Cooking, How To, Health

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2022

About the author

Cyndi Kane's streamlined dinner regimen was necessitated by her busy life homeschooling her four children for nearly twenty years. She has also been a radio talk show host and entrepreneur, currently running her own e-commerce site, House of Hyacinth.
Kane is a long-time friend of Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman), and has been featured in Drummond's book Little Ree: Best Friends Forever! , has appeared at least a dozen times on Ree’s Food Network show The Pioneer Woman, and is frequently featured in The Pioneer Woman magazine.
She lives in Pawhuska and Oklahoma City, where her husband, John, is a Supreme Court Justice for the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

Reviews

[Carissa Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is absolutely genius! An innovative and purposeful approach to saving time and money, Save it Forward suppers is sure to lower your grocery bill AND trim your waistline. Talk about a win win! This cookbook will help make weekly meal planning easy while reducing waste because Cyndi Kane will show you how to take one nights leftovers and turn it into a delicious feast for the next night’s meal. I can’t recommend it enough…. BUY THIS BOOK! ❤️

[Lori Maxey · Rating 2 out of 5]

If your family are adventurous eaters, this is the cookbook for you. Does not work for our family.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is all about having common sense and doing what you have been doing that works.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This cookbook is full of recipes that are relatively easy to make! I have tried 3 of the recipes and each was a winner for my family. The author, Cyndi Kane, has a knack for turning leftovers into a completely new meal.

I loved the format of the book, not only is there recipes but complete menu ideas. I waste so much time and energy on trying to figure out how to make a meal that isn’t boring or the same old thing. So I do really like the meal plans Cyndi included.

Also I have to mention that this book is pretty. The illustrations are just beautiful.
I can find zero faults to keep “Save-It-Forward” from being a five star rating.
I probably have 30 recipe books and this is my favorite!

I received this book in a gracious giveaway on Goodreads by the author. My review is based on my opinion alone after reading the book and trying out some of the recipes.

[Vivien · Rating 2 out of 5]

I mean this in the nicest way: this is the TRUE Nothing Fancy. There are simple recipes with common ingredients and the author instructs in an approachable way. They’ll guide you safely throughout.

That being said, I would like more exciting and bolder flavors. There’s a great variety of cuisine, however, the spice mixtures/flavors are all about the same…

The ebook copy doesn’t about say how many each recipe feeds. It’s up to your own discretion how much you make. You might have to make more in order to have leftovers just to make the other recipes for the week.

I love the illustrations, wished each week had a grocery list so you know what to purchase for the week/there’s less flipping and searching. If you’re going to talk about “save it forward staples,” make a list compiling it.

Not a fan of every menu, there are only 3 weeks which I would make everything planned, but there are a couple of recipes from other weeks that I’d make. The only downside is having to make other recipes just to make the one I want.

[Margaret Gerberding · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of this cookbook is to plan for leftovers, which you transform into other meals,

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This cookbook's strategy is to cook meals earlier in the week and use the leftovers from that meal to cook other meals later in the week. I like the strategy in theory but I'm not sure I'm at a time in my life to take advantage of it. I have a hungry husband and two hungry teenagers. I'm not sure that the meals at the beginning of the week would yield enough leftovers for the meals later in the week. Also, the complete weekly menu didn't always appeal to me. I might like 2-3 of the days but not the other ones which would defeat the purpose of the strategy. I did find a few recipes I'd like to try on their own so I'd rate this cookbook as average. I just don't think I'll use it as designed. The organization was nice and I enjoyed the author's description of each recipe. The art was beautiful but I think I would rather have seen actual pictures of the recipes.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a lot to process even if it’s routine for her. Read this because she is the “famous” Hyacinth from Pioneer Woman.

[TJ Black · Rating 3 out of 5]

This cookbook suggests a plan using leftovers for another meal. Great idea but I liked other cookbooks with this strategy better.

Author is friends with Pioneer Woman.

Illustrations only - no photos.

[William J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this Save-It-Forward Suppers Cookbook from Goodreads First Reads. The cookbook is well organized and beautifully written. The author has done a very good job presenting recipes to demonstrate her "simple strategy to save time, money, and sanity". I tried several recipes in the cookbook and thought they were easy to make and tasted delicious. Our family liked the Reubens Your Way sandwich recipe which we made from leftover corned beef. I have lentils in my freezer which I normally keep to make my favorite brownie recipe but after receiving this cookbook I tried the Lentil Soup recipe which was very tasty. My family loves Bok Choy and we tried the Garlicky Bok Choy recipe and we weren't disappointed. We also tried the Roasted Carrot, Coconut, and Raisin Muffins (with a Little Zucchini). The cookbook is organized from Week 1 through Week 15 which allows you as the author says save ingredients forward to make an entirely different meal later in that week. This is helpful for everybody and particularly helpful for people who may not really be into cooking. I highly recommend that you buy, gift, but most importantly add this cookbook to your collection to read and try something new. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

[Cathyjost · Rating 3 out of 5]

The cookbook itself is well laid out. The illustrations are very well done but I honestly prefer real photographs. We are a household of 2 and without serving numbers the ingredients in many cases are hard to quantify. I have made several recipes and they were very good and easy to follow.

[Julia L Owings · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love it all

Realistic to actually do. Nothing fancy or in need of special ingredients. Wonderfully put together. Already told grandkids to check this book out

[Teal Veyre · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've never given a cookbook one star before :(

I'm usually pretty forgiving if a cookbook has a lot of recipes that I'm not interested in eating. I'm a fairly picky eater. But like...there isn't even one thing in this book that I'm interested in cooking.

I mean MAYBE I would like one or two of the recipes, but like....I can't tell without any photographs. See, I'm not just picky about taste. I am picky about taste, smell, texture, and how the food looks. How the dish looks is incredibly important to me. Even if it smells great, if it looks weird I can't eat it. I've tried. If it looks weird, I just can't. What is "weird"? I can't even quantify it. I just know that I need to see a picture of the food. The texture, the consistency, the color, the level of grease/cheese/etc, these are all things that I need to see, in a photo. So maybe if there were photos of the food, I would have decided to try one or two of the recipes. But there were no photos. There were only watercolor cutesy little images.
I don't have disability, but I know a lot of people with autism have the same weird issues with food that I do (it's actually part of the reason multiple people have asked me if I'm autistic). anyway, I'm not, I'm just weird AF about food. But seeing as my need to see the food first to know if I can eat it is something shared by many autistic people, I think it's worth putting out there: photos in cookbooks are really helpful. I know nobody cares about me being a weird asshole who can't eat a food if the ratio of tomato sauce to meat isn't just so and the cheese looks 'cheesy but not melty', but maybe people writing cookbooks will care if I point out my fussiness over food visuals is shared by many neurodivergent people.

Also like...this author really out here acting like saving ingredients/leftovers for future meals is something she came up. Even the most novice chef learns after a few rounds of throwing out wasted ingredients that 'hey if I only need a tablespoon of ricotta for this recipe, I'd better figure out how to use the rest of the ricotta so it doesn't go to waste.'

This was a cute concept, but ultimately, the meals were kind of basic and yucky (I know that's subjective but like....yeah. Even some of the stuff that I LIKE was made in such a strange way that I knew I wouldn't eat it). The meal plans are sort of basic bitch stuff and fairly mediocre....And nobody needs their weekly meals planned out for them in order to know 'hey, I should select recipes that all use the same/similar ingredients for the week.'

That being said, I did still want to see how this was executed, because I thought, surely, if this concept has been made into a cookbook, there will be unique and innovative ways to use up ingredients.

Nope....I've never rated a cookbook below 5 stars before :(

[Debra Hofland · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm torn. I love the idea of this book, but many (most?) of the recipes are not in my flavor wheelhouse. Some of the recipes ARE in my flavor-house. And to be honest, I'm a good cook and already DO this save-it-forward cooking method. And I LOVE leftovers, they are the mainstay of my lunch choices and at least one meal a week is a re-run of some sort or an on-purpose leftover.

For the newer cook, though, this book is pure genius as it will help you learn how to plan-ahead and make things on-purpose that will "stretch" into several more meals.

I used to make an EXTRA big batch of chicken tortilla soup. Then take the leftover soup (though we loved that as much as the first run!) and turn it into a casserole (put crushed tortilla chips in the bottom of a cake pan, sprinkle on cheese, add the soup & another layer of crushed chips & cheese. Bake at 350 for about 20-30 minutes. Serve a big square of this with sour cream, little green onions, salsa, olives....mmmm! Was a big hit with my hearty eaters!

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Things I liked about this book: The AMAZING illustrations. I could look at them all day. Also, the recipes in here are very family and budget friendly, and there is an incredible variety. They are generally made with easy to find ingredients, and the directions are straightforward and the times accurate.

The problem for me is that this book requires a level of organization that I just can't muster on a regular basis. The premise is that you have leftovers that you turn into other meals for the week. If I have leftovers, sometimes I'll follow these ideas (leftover roast chicken becomes chicken salad or quesadillas - I didn't need a cookbook to tell me that). Or sometimes I'll just serve the leftovers, with another vegetable. If my family doesn't like eating the same thing two nights in a row, they can have cereal:)

So, it's sort of solving a problem I don't have. But this is worth checking out for family-friendly healthyish recipes, and her lunch tips are also good.

[Christina Joyner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, I am so impressed with her cookbook! I am a big Ree Drummond fan and had no idea this was her best friends cookbook. I’ve only had the cookbook for 2 weeks and have made Oklahoma coleslaw twice. It is absolutely delicious. I really like the concept of using leftovers for other meals but I rarely have leftovers. Still I plan on making a lot of her recipes. I love that she has some budget friendly meals. I find her stories very interesting. I hope she will do more cookbooks in the future!

[Corban Ford · Rating 3 out of 5]

I definitely found some interesting ideas about how to use certain cuts of meats and types of vegetables in different, re-imagined ways that will keep the menu fresh throughout the week, and that was of special interest to me, since meal-prepping can be a bit rough due to leftover fatigue. I can't say that all of the recipes spoke to me, but the writing format was easily readable and I definitely feel like I derived some value from this book for sure.

[Julie Womack · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this cookbook! It's such a clever and efficient way of cooking. My favorite part is the author's fun personality that shines through and makes me chuckle, as well as many brilliant kitchen hacks such as perfect boiled eggs (which I've always struggled with) and overnight chicken broth. This will be the gift that I give family and friends this year.

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great ideas and layout! The idea is to cook and use your leftovers each week. There are useful tips on how to save time prepping these meals in each chapter.
I'm a picky eater so there were lots of recipes that I would never make. My favorite part of this book were the illustrations. Beautifully drawn and slightly retro.
Illustrations by Jeannine Bulleigh.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25. I appreciate the concept of making items ahead but I didn’t feel her recipes were that novel or revolutionary. I also found it aggravating the references to Ree Drummond (including the first line in her bio that they’re best friends). I’d like to see someone produce a cookbook on their own merits, not based on who they know.

[Kristen Kase-Janowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the premise of this book is great. For families that don’t have any food allergies, this is probably an amazing way to stretch both money and food. It definitely gave me ideas about how I’m preparing and stretching meals, but the recipes itself in this book would be so much work to try to figure out how to adapt them for what me and my family can eat that it isn’t really helpful.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the mindset of this cookbook. I think it would be hard for me to give up my current meal planning style and adopt one of her meal plans for a week. But the recipes seemed achievable. I borrowed this from the library, but would enjoy my own copy so I could sample recipes at my own pace.

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent!

[Harry E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Handy to have a 15 minute supper that can go farther than you realize

[Cicely · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the illustrations for the recipes, but the recipes really weren't ones I would likely make. Easy to read, follow, and make sense, but not for me.

[Olivia Ambrose · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great idea, almost no vegetarian options.

[Amanda Overcash · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is hands down the best cookbook I have ever used. Everything has been delicious, simple, straightforward, and I’m saving money. Love love love. I’ve bought this book for gifts to share!

[Sara Madden · Rating 5 out of 5]

23/133

[Ashley Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea here is that one day a week you make a giant feast. The rest of the week you transform the leftovers into different incarnations. Not really for me, but I like the concept.