American Heart Association Quick and Easy Cookbook

Our lives are more hurried and harried than ever. Who has time to spend hours in the kitchen whipping up tasty yet healthy meals? When we try to eat fast, we almost always eat fat. It's tempting to visit the nearest fast-food restaurant or pop a fat-filled frozen entree into the microwave. With the AHA Quick and Easy Cookbook, working adults and hungry kids, singles pulling long hours at the office -- or anyone who wants to rediscover the joys of home cooking without a lot of fuss and bother -- can savor the pleasures of healthy meals that are as delicious as they are simple to prepare.
        
With everything from appetizers, soups, salads, and main courses to breads, breakfast treats, and desserts, the AHA Quick and Easy Cookbook has over two hundred options for truly appetizing meals that can be pulled together in under thirty minutes without sacrificing good taste or nutrition.

Tempting dishes include stuffed French toast, mushroom quesadillas, pesto "fried" chicken, cornbread-coated pork chops, veal scaloppine in shiitake cream sauce, southwest shepherd's pie, peppery parmesan pan rolls, easy apple-cinnamon crisp, and confetti cupcakes with chocolate glaze.

Menu suggestions, a shopping list for the prepared cook's pantry, a glossary of cooking terms, and helpful hints will  make AHA Quick and Easy Cookbook the most well-thumbed and well-loved cookbook on your bookshelf. It's easy to fall into high-fat, fast-food habits when we're busy, and who isn't busy? The American Heart Association has a solution: 200 recipes that are tasty, healthful, low-fat, and fast. The recipes--conveniently spiral-bound--take 20 minutes or less preparation time, and most take just a few minutes of additional cooking time. (Some require more cooking time, but you don't have to hover over them.) Don't skip breakfast when you can make Cinnamon-Bran Pancakes (total time: 11 to 14 minutes), Stuffed French Toast (16 to 18 minutes), or a Banana-Kiwi Breakfast Shake (5 minutes) in less time than it takes to pick up a muffin on your way to work. Your family or guests won't guess you whipped up dinner in a hurry when you make Pasta-Crusted Fish with Marinara Sauce (15 minutes), Sherried Seafood Sauté (15 minutes), or Skillet Chicken Thighs with Dried Berries (20 minutes). The book has an assortment of one-dish meals like Salmon and Brown Rice Bake, Black Bean Lasagna, and Chicken with Broccoli and Bulgur. There are also appetizers, vegetables, breads, sandwiches, salads, and desserts. All recipes include preparation time, cooking time, and nutritional information: calories, protein, carbohydrates, fat (total, saturated, polyunsaturated, monounsaturated), cholesterol, and sodium. Yummy photographs decorate the book. --Joan Price