Martha Stewart's Healthy Quick Cook

Quickness, clearly, is in the eye of the beholder. Often excessively creative, these 52 menus--13 per season--fuse ethnic flavors and, to some extent, minimize rich ingredients. Enlightened Creme Fraiche, for example, is lighter and tangier by reducing the heavy cream/buttermilk ratio to half-and-half. But the book's claim that this is everyday fare easily prepared will be swallowed only by those kitchen phenoms who can trim a dozen artichokes and clean two pounds of mussels between the sports and weather segments of the local TV news. These labors are required when making Mussels and Baby Artichokes Barigoule, the centerpiece of a menu whose sidedish is Spaghetti Squash with Sage and Orange and whose dessert is Forelle Pears in Parchment. For a Latin-accented meal, Stewart champions homemade Corn Tortillas to go with Posole with Garnishes. A single meatball in Turkey Meatball Soup with Escarole and Pappardelle can support a satisfying dinner, opines Stewart. Horseradish Whipped Potatoes serves four with only two russets. Stewart mentions that freshly grated horseradish is a must for this dish, but the recipe specifies the prepared kind. Harder-to-find ingredients needed elsewhere include fresh lychees, cipolline onions and Kaiware sprouts. Stewart's fans will likely appreciate these additions to their repertoire; readers looking for quickly prepared weekday fare may be annoyed. 150 color photos not seen by PW. HomeStyle Books main selection. (Nov.)