Leftovers get their moment in Tamar Adler's 'The Everlasting Meal Cookbook'

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Tamar Adler is the author of The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A-Z,which focuses on creatively reusing leftovers. Keren Carrión/NPR hide caption

Tamar Adler is the author of The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A-Z,which focuses on creatively reusing leftovers.

If the thought of leftovers grosses you out, Tamar Adler is here to change your mind. Her new cookbook, The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A-Z,is a seemingly endless encyclopedia of recipes that rely on what's left after we finish the initial meal.

Adler gives new life to the foods that many of us leave in the fridge to waste away until they wilt to the point of no return and go into the trash. The way she sees it, by making something new, you're honoring and extending the labor you put in the first time around.

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"If you've bought whole heads of lettuce, and ... you've cut the leaves off of the head, you've washed them, you've dried them ... and then you've made dressing and then you've dressed it and, like, maybe you've bought good, beautiful, organic, you know, special lettuce — you don't want to throw it out," Adler told NPR's Mary Louise Kelly.

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Adler relies heavily on garnishes such as cilantro, lemon zest, and garlic. Keren Carrión/NPR hide caption

Adler relies heavily on garnishes such as cilantro, lemon zest, and garlic.

That feeling of not wanting her hard work to disappear resulted in five different recipes of what to do with leftover dressed lettuce, ranging from a gazpacho to a savory pancake. One of the recipes even gets a bit meta.

"This is essentially pureed dressed lettuce with more vinegar and salt and maybe olive oil," Adler said.

"It becomes so good that the day I made it, I brought it to a dinner party and everybody there was like, this salad dressing is so amazing. I was like, that salad dressing is made of salad. It was like the mother and child reunion from the Paul Simon song."

With other dishes like her "Empty Jar Nut Butter Noodles," Adler shows you how there's an opportunity to make a meal out of just about anything – and it can often come together quickly.

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Tamar Adler's new cookbook is all focused on creatively reusing leftovers. Keren Carrión/NPR hide caption

Tamar Adler's new cookbook is all focused on creatively reusing leftovers.

In this recipe, everything that helps the sauce comes together – hot water, garlic, salt, fish sauce, lime juice, sugar and chiles – goes into the nearly empty nut butter jar and gets shaken up until you're ready to coat the noodles and add some veggies and herbs.