Supermarket Gourmet

Cooking a gourmet meal generally requires extended visits to one or more supermarkets, extra cash for exotic ingredients and, sometimes, the dilemma of whether to sidestep a healthy diet. Prolific cookbook author Steinback follows up Cook Once, Eat for a Week and Countertop Magician with this collection of quick and nutritious recipes that use ingredients commonly found in most supermarkets. Steinback, self-billed as""America's Healthiest Mom,"" opens her latest book with gushing testimonials and acknowledgements, but once they get past this self-congratulation, readers will be impressed with the variety of appetizers, soups, main dishes, sides, snacks and desserts that the author covers. Recipes like Creamy Basil Rotini Pasta, Baked Halibut on Spinach Leaves and Chicken Paella are typical main dish selections. There are plenty of suggestions for salads and side dishes, as well as a smorgasbord of baked treats like Carrot-Raisin Cookies and Kahlua Cake Parfait. She also provides helpful, basic charts on various foods' nutritional content and recommendations on how to properly store vegetables and fruits. Whole food gurus and food snobs will not be impressed by Steinback's insistent use of non-fat cheeses and yogurts or recipes, like Chinese Chicken Stir Fry, that call for frozen vegetable stir-fry mix and bottled stir-fry sauce, but such epicures are not her intended audience anyway. Steinback's target soccer parent readers will appreciate this reliable, acceptably creative collection of healthy-enough recipes and advice.