Weight Watchers' Quick and Easy Cookbook

Weight Watchers introduces a calorie-cutting cookbook that will tempt nondieters as well. A few recipes aim specifically at calorie counters, notably apple crisp with a graham-cracker topping and an egg cream prepared with diet chocolate soda. However, these adapted recipes are far outnumbered by savory dishes with much broader appeal, such as sliced steak with Gorgonzola sauce, bourbon chicken, crabmeat-stuffed flounder, wild-rice soup and sausage bread. Nondieters can take obvious liberties with the instructions, serving real maple syrup with blueberry-cornmeal pancakes or ignoring instructions that only two lemon-cream cheese cookies constitute a portion. The recipes fit into eight weeks of full-day menus designed to work with the new Quick Success program. Each day uses from one to four of the recipes in the book. Supporting text offers fast-fix and other cooking hints, but does not describe the plan on which these menus are based. Consequently, dieters may wish to seek additional information. Illustrations not seen by PW. (January 22)