Perfectly Good Food: A Totally Achievable Zero Waste Approach to Home Cooking

by Margaret Li, Irene Li

Want to cook better while saving money and reducing your trash? Learn to eat less wastefully and more sustainably in this combination cookbook and field guide, full of ingenious use-it-up tips, smart storage ideas, and infinitely adaptable Hero Recipes. Whether you’ve got a lingering bunch of herbs or an abundance of summer tomatoes, Perfectly Good Food will help rescue everything in your fridge while getting a delicious dinner on the table quickly and easily—you’ll be inspired never to waste good food again.


Written by the chef-sisters behind Boston’s acclaimed Mei Mei Dumplings, Perfectly Good Food combines professional know-how from a decade in the restaurant industry with the make-it-work approach of a home cook feeding a busy family. With clever, colorful illustrations supporting a diverse array of plant-forward recipes, this is a book for the thrifty chef, the environmentally mindful cook, and anyone looking to make the most of their ingredients.

Genres: Cookbooks, Nonfiction, Food, Cooking, Reference, Science, Environment

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2023

About the author

Margaret Li is the primary author of the award-winning cookbooks Perfectly Good Food and Double Awesome Chinese Food. She is the founder of Food Waste Feast and lives in Glasgow, Scotland.

Reviews

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars all the way!
Did you know you can speed up the avocado-ripening process? I learned a new way to do that here!
This book is a fantastic, usable guide that covers the following ways you can: store food, save it, use the extra bits and use it all up.
Also included are cool recipes and I love the colorful illustrations and the user-friendly layout of the book. **AHEM “user-friendly” meaning it’s especially great for people like me who don’t often cook. :)
This cookbook actually is fun to read and I learned a few ways to better store my blueberries (p.253) and tomatoes. Ready to put this into action!

Thank you to W.W. Norton, as I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have checked out several stop wasting food books recently but this is the only one that stuck. It's the only one that inspired me. Is it the authors' spunky tone? I'm usually a little skeptical of upbeat writing - ha! Is it the less Eurocentric recipe ideas? I do love scallion greens and chili oil on everything. Well I don't hardly know, but it's working. I feel excited about using up and making do, and it's such a neat trick to change your attitude to see abundance rather than lacking something. As a result, this book is performing an outsized service.

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sisters Margaret “Mei” and Irene Li have devised the cookbook we all need: how to ensure that cut down on how much food we throw out. Sure, that costs the average American household $30 a week in wasted food; however, the bigger problem is that 40% of the food produced in the United States is being thrown away due to waste at the farm, supermarket and mostly household levels. “How can we be throwing out so much food at the same time people are going hungry?” the authors ask. Good question!

Just today I threw out a bag of not sure what at the back of my refrigerator that had turned into green liquid. The Li sisters give excellent advice to use shriveled lettuce, mushy berries and more in order to cut down on food waste. Mei and Irene even have uses for peelings and scraggly stalks (vegetable broth, of course!) And when, inevitably, something does go too bad to use, the detritus should go into a compost heap rather than into a landfill to create greenhouse gas emissions. Five delicious stars for this must-read cookbook!

[meghana · Rating 5 out of 5]

SO USEFUL

[Chris Brook · Rating 4 out of 5]

We had Mei Mei cater our wedding so knew I'd be a fan of this before I started. Not 100% sure how you're supposed to log and rate cook books though; I read all the intros and outros to sections and skimmed through all of the recipes. Does that count as finishing the book? Some really good ideas here. A lot of them may not be as actionable for most people but (insert overly optimistic voice here) every little bit helps.

[Karen Hammond · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. It is full of great ideas to use up what you already have in your fridge. The illustrations are gorgeous and so easy to use to inspire you. This is the way we should all cook. Great for saving food and money. An excellent buy for both foodies and those starting out in the kitchen.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic handbook for home cooks looking to decrease their food waste. Even picky eaters like me will find plenty of ideas to try! The recipes are deliberately super flexible, with options to swap out ingredients depending on what's in your fridge. There is also a wealth of information about how to store your ingredients for longevity!

[Dani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book. The pictures were lovely and very useful. This would be a great book for someone who is starting to cook for themself. It was also cool to see tips and tricks that I've learned on my own. I wish the recipes would have cook times but everything else was amazing.

Although I will say, I haven't tried any of the recipes yet. Will update this if I will. I do have a dried herb I could use but I'm lazy. So maybe that would be a mark against the book but more likely against me.

[Bunmi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked how the sections of this book were broken down by both type of food item and how it functions when cooked. The illustrations really added to the reading experience, especially since many of the drawings were in the form of a flow chart. I also appreciate how Mei and Irene gave credit to recipes that were modified and inspired by other chefs/cookbooks.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Won this from a giveaway!

Beautiful book and super simple recipes with great suggestions for alternative substitutions. This is a great everyday cookbook. I am really pleased with the quality.

[Anna]

Well-presented and thorough! But it’s due back at the library and I’m not in the mood to spend the time to read beyond a few highlights right now.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the idea but I felt they went a little too hard on do the “sniff test” and it’s probably fine philosophy!

People are not generally well educated on food safety to begin with and although they follow it up with being more careful if you are feeding children, the elderly or those with health problems I didn’t think they gave enough instruction on handling the food from the beginning to insure that you have leftover scraps that are safe to eat. Most bacteria that makes people sick does not alter the smell, feel or appearance of the food. It’s great to use up a piece of chicken but not if it’s been sitting out for 3 hrs or wasn’t refrigerated properly to begin with.

I think they could have written the entire book (and others have) without focusing on how most food is safe to eat after you’d think or is suggested and to cut around mold. That is a really outdated and not scientifically backed practice. I don’t think it was explicit enough for a general audience who didn’t go through mandatory food safety classes. Just give us tips for using up odds and ends!

[Helen Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy enjoyable read with lots of lovely suggestions

[Poppy Marlowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Living healthily, food-wise, these days is difficult as food is so darn expensive and with grocery magnates like Galen Weston, Jr. still managing to make $700 MILLION in profit in 2023 alone, it is utterly a crime to waste food. Unless you own stock in Loblaws.

I am always telling hubby that I am sick of throwing out the food that he asked me to make for him that goes bad as he decides to order a pizza and make it last 5 days while the $paghetti $auce I made him goes bad...I now have the rule that if I throw it out, I don't make it again. (Ask him when we last had chicken...he will say never and that it was his fault.)

This book is a great way to try to go zero waste in your home and to save money in the process and it even has some very edible recipes that show you how to use things up. I like that there are ideas other than smoothies to use up fruit and wilty spinach: I hate the texture of smoothies so those are never a "go" in our house for that reason and the fact that many smoothies have as much sugar and fat as ice cream does ... I would rather have a bowl of Rocky Road!)

There are a lot of drawings in here that show how easy it is to make something like a smoothie (sigh) with ratios of fruits, veggies, something creamy, etc. NO THANKS from me but I am sure that the rest of the world will like them...I just donated my blender to the Goodwill as it had not been used in over 10 years.

The authors are sisters: Irene owns Mei Mei Dumplings in Boston while Margaret (who lives in Scotland) is the founder of Food Waste Feast. They also co-authored the book "Double Awesome Chinese Food". I highly recommend that book as well.

I am not saying to change WEVERYTHING OVERNIGHT, food habit-wise...that can be overwhelming, but this book can get you on the right road to less waste and not drinking smoothies or eating buddha bowls to clean out the fridge.

Personal notes:
*********************
(I don't know how one would reuse banana peels: at least orange peels are easily used as an air freshener. I have heard of BANANA PEEL "BACON" but that is vegan insanity so those suckers are only going in the compost bin .. don't try the often suggested attempt to have the peels shine your silver: it is disastrous!)

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sister authors give ideas of how to use up excess quantities of food that you have leftover. The focus is primarily on fruits and vegetables but they do also include some dairy and meat ideas, too.

I saw this book at the library and was interested to see what the authors recommendations were to use up various foods in your house. As someone who cooks a lot and who likes the challenge of using up food, I thought I would read the book to get some extra ideas. Because it was a library book, I didn't cook anything with it. But I did appreciate reading the book. The authors give a variety of recipes, but it does skew to a lot of different kinds of Asian food, perhaps more than my family would typically eat.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is less a cookbook and more of a philosophy against food waste. There are lots of great ideas for using up the odd bits and bobs you may have leftover. It's a great way to save money and save the planet. The sisters that wrote the book are both professional chefs, and their ideas are creative. I liked some of the tips here, like how to ripen an avocado. And their storage and arrangement ideas are great. The book doesn't have pictures, but really fun illustrations throughout. Some of the recipes were too long/involved for me to work into my regular routine, but the ideas they shared about stretching fruit and veggies will get worked into how we live.

Definitely worth checking out if you're looking to prevent food waste (and who isn't)?

[Chelka Posladek · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the perfect cookbook for people who cook like me. I'm not great at following recipes to the letter and don't want anything complicated. I often don't measure and love being able to just swap one thing for another, throwing in whatever I have on hand. This cookbook is PERFECT because it provides blueprint recipes. Savory pancakes, for example, that use all kinds of different vegetables. They suggest some and then tell you what else would work. They tell you which parts of vegetables can go in your food, which parts in the compost, and what should go in the trash. They also tell you what can still be eaten when it looks old, and how to make your produce last longer. It's great!

[(a)lyss(a) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a unique book. Instead of pictures there are drawings for the recipes with information on reducing waste in the kitchen. The book includes ratios and helpful drawings to make your own bases, soups, and other foods to use up food that's normally discarded. I would have liked a little more guidance like traditional cook books, especially when it comes to time and how much of each thing to use. There are some helpful ideas to use all parts of foods in different recipes.

[Reina Williams]

This may be a cookbook I've been looking for. With sections by ingredient type, with a lot of great info on storing, using, and saving foods, I already learned some new things (I've been cooking and reading cookbooks and more for over 40 years) and many of the recipes seem like guides to meals we would eat and can help keep my food spending down. Not rating until I try some of the recipes. This is one that, if the recipes turn out well, I'll be buying rather than just checking out of the library.

[Amanda Wolfley · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic, invaluable resource for anyone interesting in lowering their food waste at all. It is full of really great ideas for how to store and use food that we might otherwise let go bad or throw away. Not wasting food is important to me so I’m very grateful for the work that went into creating this book. I’m sure I’ll reference it often. I checked it out from the library but will definitely buy my own copy.

[Kristie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a cookbook, but it reads like a regular book and has ideas for using every last bit and scrap of food. Over half the book is prose. The recipes are more like formulas or approaches than traditional recipes, with lots of flexibility to suit your own tastes and needs. I don't normally track my cookbooks in good reads, but this one is special.

[Janine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A practical guide that is also fun to read. It is organized in a way that is easy to follow and implement. I found it so helpful that after returning the library book I ordered it from my bookstore so I can have it as a reference. I now have an “eat me first” box in my fridge and it has really helped.

[Georgia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved flipping through this e-arc provided by NetGalley. I'm excited to pick up a hard copy version of this when it comes up- a very approachable philosophy with a wide variety of recipes, informative content, and beautiful illustrations!

[Sara Sparrow · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed how much this book made me rethink how I approach food and leftovers whilst trying to save money and live a more eco friendly lifestyle.

The ideas were easy to follow and the book itself is engaging - I know I'll refer to this time and again.

[Leslie Ferrari · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice reference book for using up more food on hand. The Hero Recipes, are very well done, and are more a process than a cut and dried recipe, allowing a great deal of flexibility. I think this book would be especially helpful for less experienced cooks.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating stuff here! I read through this book, and I feel encouraged and inspired to follow the authors’ advice and ideas to waste less food. I haven’t tried any specific recipes (and the library wants their book back!) but just getting myself to think this way is a huge, useful step.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book for encouraging you to reduce food waste. Each section covers how best to store, with good basic recipes and what to do to adapt all of them. Would be good for a novice homecook who isn't sure what to do to avoid food waste.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting book and a great way to rethink food waste. Some suggestions will be hard to incorporate as I think I'm used to not using food past its "prime" but I'm going to try and incorporate the suggestions and work harder to waste less food in 2024.

[Liz Delf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good ideas, well organized, with cute and helpful illustrations throughout. I read it cover to cover! My new favorite thing is making a crispy snack with potato or other root veggie peels. EVOO, S&P, peels, parmesan... bake at 425 for 15 minutes. Delicious.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Packed with useful tips on how to avoid food waste in your kitchen. Would have preferred the inclusion of photographs but the illustrated diagrams are great.