HOME COOKING IN MINUTES

The authors of a string of well-received microwave cookbooks (Microwave Entertaining, 1989, etc.) base this on the reasonable assumption that it makes sense to combine microwave and conventional cooking in preparing an everyday meal. That's probably how most microwave owners operate already, and admitting it allows Snyder and Cone to include recipes for pizza, chicken cutlets, and other dishes better done in a conventional oven or stove-top pan. They still use the microwave more than some of us would favor--for heating broth or water for cooking rice--and the recipes (a fairly standard linguini with red-pepper sauce; a chili con came made ""intense"" with a spot of chocolate), while proficient, fall within a range that has been recently overgrazed in better-than-average cookbooks. Still, the mixed-method gimmick will no doubt be sufficient draw for this dependable duo's many followers.