Save Your Heart with Susan: Six Easy Steps to Cooking Delicious Healthy Meals in a Microwave

A dietician and a microwave retailer who appears regularly on CNN's Health Week , Nicholson is an unabashed apologist for the microwave, yet here, with collaborator Jubera, she proves ready to concede its limitations (e.g., she's ``not thrilled'' with microwave muffins). For lower-fat eating, however, microwave cooking can be ideal, assert the authors, since fresh vegetables and other healthy choices can often be prepared quickly and deliciously without butter or oils. The trick is knowing how to choose and use a microwave for more than defrosting food and popping corn; Nicholson and Jubera explain the relevant basics and more, in a personable style laced jauntily with humor. The recipes are presented as items in menus meant to be mixed and matched. Each is accompanied by nutritional analysis. Gourmet and international fare can be found, but the majority of dishes are undaunted standbys--lean, roasted meat and poultry, steamed and baked vegetable combinations, versatile soups and sauces, easy desserts. All are reasonably to extremely healthful and invariably simple to prepare--in the microwave, of course. (Jan . )