Martha Stewart's Dinner at Home: 52 Quick Meals to Cook for Family & Friends

Created with busy cooks in mind, culinary guru Stewart's newest collection offers complete menus that take advantage of seasonal produce. Showcasing 13 menus for each season, Stewart groups recipes into meals, with each including a starter, main course, side dish and dessert. Especially helpful are the preparation schedules that head each menu and provide a to-do list for the entire meal, not just one dish. Sample menus include spring's salad with fresh mozzarella; turkey and pancetta meatballs; pasta with mint pesto and fava beans; and coffee ice cream affogato . As a summer dish, one can create a menu of salmon with creamy leeks, dilled rice salad, sugar snap peas with toasted almonds, and raspberry-mint gelatin cups. For a fall meal, there's warm Swiss chard and bacon dip, braised chicken Marsala, sage polenta, and sautéed pears in honey syrup. Throughout, Stewart provides helpful hints on a variety of topics such as how to make espresso, roast vegetables and make caramel. She also includes a helpful Basics section that covers how-to instructions for stocks, bread crumbs, toasting nuts and more. Gorgeous full-color photos (225 of them) add to the book's appeal. (Oct.)