MICRO WAYS: Every Cook's Guide to Successful Microwaving

For microwavers who want to do more than reheat and defrost, but not too much more, the microwave columnists for Newsday and coauthors of The New Doubleday Cookbook and The New Doubleday Cookbook offer a standard international range of simple recipes from chili dogs and tomato sauce for spaghetti to Indian cabbage and chicken Valencia. There's also a dish called chiles rellenos that, in the absence of frying or batter, might better be named microwaved stuffed peppers. Often, microwaving is combined with conventional cooking: To brown, spareribs must be finished off in the broiler or on the grill; quiche Lorraine starts off with a conventionally baked crust and takes up to 17 minutes to microwave, not much of a time saving. In all, it's a predictable middlebrow collection with no particular methodological inspiration--though the authors clearly know their microwaves and pass on their familiarity in practical tips and explanations.