This is more about prepping and shopping and those tips are great but in the end not for me.

Thanks to NetGalley / Edelweiss and the publisher for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for a review.

Thank you so much Netgalley for the advance reader's copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Sometimes when you don't have a set recipe, and if you have some ingredients then you still can make something delicious and awesome.

Thanks NetGalley for the preview!

I liked the layout of this book but felt like details were lacking. This was advertised as for beginners but I found myself being left with quite a few questions. I also didn't love that there were not many fresh veggies included in the recipes.

This really helped me change how I interact with the food I have in my kitchen- teaching me to reply less on recipes and more on my instincts. Thank you!

This has been a life saver for me. When I cook, I don’t like to use recipes, but I do need guidance and this does just that!

I never got around to reading this. It seemed like a great idea I just didn’t have the time and now I have no interest towards it.

Great idea for a cookbook! I love the idea of recipe books, but actually following them can be tedious, and I'm often missing one hard to find thing and end up either googling alternatives, substituting and inventing half the recipe, or giving up and making something else. Hopefully this book means my troubles are gone! Full of inspiration, no pressure to feel like Gordon Ramsay and just great encouragement without the patronising tone of some recipe books.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest feedback.

This is not a terrible book, but I’m a public health student so I found it very frustrating.

From the introduction and the foreword, it’s very clear that the primary aim of this book is to encourage home cooking in order to facilitate weight loss. The author and the person who wrote the foreword are both doctors, and speak at length about the horrors of obesity. They discuss other benefits of cooking too - saving money, general health, eating together as a family, etc - but it’s quite clear that weight loss is the real point of the book. Due to my public health background, I really take issue with this: it’s making weight and diet about individual responsibility, and perpetuating the stereotype that obese people just need to decide to change their lifestyle. It isn’t the worst view on obesity out there, because it’s not overtly shaming or stigmatising - but it’s still patronising and short-sighted. There’s nothing about the broader social factors that create obesity, and while I know that might be outside the scope of a recipe book, I feel that Pillay should at least acknowledge the limitations of her approach if she’s going to push so hard for that angle - i.e. teaching people how to cook and changing individuals’ behaviour will not address the underlying, social causes of obesity, and will have very little real impact.

The lack of understanding of social inequities is worsened by the fact that many of the tips Pillay gives are inaccessible for people on low incomes. For example, she advises getting a breadmaker, coffee machine, slow cooker, vacuum sealer, and numerous other expensive gadgets. She justifies this by saying that you’ll save money in the long run - but if you’re in poverty, you may not be able to afford the upfront cost of these items, even if she’s right that they eventually pay for themselves. People in poverty are the group that Pillay’s advice should be targeted towards, but this book is often quite patronising, so even when the tips themselves might be helpful, I couldn’t blame someone for tossing this book down in frustration. Again, I don’t expect a recipe book to solve poverty, but it could be more upfront about its limitations.

As for the cooking advice itself, it’s fine… but No Recipe? No Problem! is the same idea but better executed. What’s more, instead of being patronising and weight-focused, that book feels like a joyful celebration of food and fresh, seasonal eating (which also happens to be good for your health, shockingly).

An amazing simple yet informative cookbook for both those who are experts and novices in the kitchen.

I think many people are looking for a quick and easy fix to get some homemade meals, but I didn't find any real solutions yet. Nor does this book provide any.

Unfortunately it wasn't the book for me, as it concentrates more on economy and seldom shopping (once every 2-3 weeks) than on the kind of meals I'm looking for.
It has lots of carbohydrate meals and not so many with fresh vegetables (because of the seldom shopping), and the recipes are only schematic, with no quantities and detailed instruction how to cook.

I hope it will help others..

I tried. I read over 60% of it, but I just couldn't do it anymore.
There is nothing here that let's see teach you how to cook with whatever you have in the fridge - no, it's a family's menu for two weeks. Stuff you can easily learn about online or on reddit groups. I was expecting something more from this.

It's not your run-of-the-mill cookbook but still interesting in its own right. Highly recommend to people who find traditional recipes and cooking, intimidating.

Many thanks to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for this free ARC. This review is made of my own accord, with no monetary compensation whatsoever from the names mentioned above and/or the rightful owners of this ARC.

An easy read with lots of great tips, especially if you are a beginner cook. While there's not a lot of actual recipes here, there is a lot of lots of hints for planning, shopping, budgeting and time management - this is more of a guide with ideas for what to do with what you have.

The meals presented are definitely aimed at an omnivore family with no real dietary restrictions, so a little more diversity in meal choices might have been nice, but the hints are still. Also there are no photographs... even though there's no real recipes here, it would be nice to see a version of the finished dish or some of the variations on it.

This would be a great gift for a novice cook finding their way in the kitchen, or someone who is not yet confident enough to experiment. Thank you to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for allowing me to read The No Recipe Cookbook in return for my honest opinions.

This book is intended for beginners and even though I know the basics of cooking I liked the theory and the tips and I would recommend the cookbook to beginners. The concept of no recipes but of ideas and letting the person involved in cooking to experiment with the ingredients it was interesting so I enjoyed the format of the cookbook.

This was definitely a unique approach to a cookbook. I liked the author's presentation of "recipes" and do plan to try some of the ideas out for my family.

2,5 ⭐️ actually. Im not sure what Was I expecting. I think kind of something that was useful for me because I have eating disorders. Mostly bc of don’t know what to cook or eat and not wanting to take so much time for it. So I was eager to read this bc I thought it was my salvation 😅 sadly it wasn’t like that. Didn’t think it were there something useful for me or something I didn’t already knew about. I have to remark that the tips for the very beginners were so cool to put. Bc it could serve some other people that have absolutely no idea of how to cook.
But for me didn’t serve so right. The only half interesting part were that of the sándwiches combination. But I can’t live on sandwiches can I?😅 so, I hope that it serves to somebody. I won’t criticize the author bc she doesn’t deserve something bad to say. I just was hoping a little different and better to me but I liked her way to write anyways.

Thanks for the chance to read through this cookbook in exchange for honest feedback. I think that the strength of this particular cookbook is in its potential audience... it serves best for beginners to home cooking as it teaches someone how to shop and put together meals. It helps show the processes for cooking meals, how to meet the necessary food group/meal ideas, and how to meet finances and health requirements effectively. This book is helpful for the promotion and education of very necessary life skills.

I read this book based on the fact that I tick virtually every box in the description; I hate cooking, don't have time for it, and am bored with using the same pasta recipes every week.

Whilst I did get some new ideas - fish cakes, I think I'll actually try! - this is very much a book designed for families. The concept of buying all ingredients in advance is great, and there are some organisational tips I'll definitely be trying out, but as a student who cooks only for myself, such big meals aren't exactly practical.

Furthermore, though the book is called 'No Recipe', it is actually filled with recipes? They just aren't laid out in the traditional format. In fact, the steps are big block paragraphs of description which, whilst useful in places, are more difficult to read than a normal cookbook. Actually, this reads like a looong blog post about how to make your food shop stretch over two weeks. Interesting, but poor for a...well, a cookbook.

This also isn't that wonderful for vegetarians; it's very meat-based, and it'd be nice to see a few more meal ideas that don't involve having to buy (expensive!) meat.

All this being said, I've picked up a few tips I'll definitely use going forward - maybe this will be more useful to me in future years if I'm cooking for a family?

At first I was kind of surprised about the plainness of the book, meaning no beautiful food photography or other visual elements, but it turned out to be pretty helpful. This book takes cooking at a very basic level explaining the fundamental concepts and how to develop a two week meal plan. Some of the tipps are on a very beginner level and pretty obvious to someone, who at least occasionally has a pan or knive in their hand, but I liked the choice of recipes this books provides, since they are very adaptable to your personal preferences. I'm looking forward to trying some of them. However, in my opinion too many of them are based on meat or fish and I would have loved to have more vegetarian or vegan inspirations.

The No Recipe Cookbook is a peculiar but highly practical cookbook for both novices and those who suffer from a bit of cooking phobia. There are no images and very few recipes (at least in the format that they are usually presented). Instead, the author provides broad text-only instructions for core or base dishes (think pancakes or stir-fry) and follows with some rough suggestions for variations in taste, flavor, or toppings. There’s a running theme of frugality, which is helpful for both those on a budget as well as those who are simply overwhelmed by the sheer amount of cookware crap available at the local home goods store.