Trim & Terrific American Favorites

Clegg (From a Louisiana Kitchen) keeps it simple and quick here with easy-to-prepare recipes from her own kitchen. In many cases, she relies on canned soups and broths, frozen vegetables and cake mixes, which may be a turn-off to cooks looking for meals with pizzazz or hoping to steer clear of preservatives. Nevertheless, Clegg offers a variety of modified family favorites ranging from Creamy Noodle Casserole, made with nonfat sour cream, low-fat cottage cheese and reduced-fat Cheddar, to Quick Beef Stew, made with beef round, no-salt-added beef broth and light beer. A list of menus precedes the recipes, which are organized in chapters by course (Appetizers) or main ingredient (Seafood and Fish). Recipes come with nutritional analyses that require readers to refer to food-exchange tables in the back of the book for such information as carbohydrate value. An additional complication is that the analysis for some recipes doesn't match the serving sizes, e.g., while the serving size of a football-season Hamburger Dip is suggested to be slightly less than half a cup,the analysis is per tablespoon. Among the many low-fat cookbooks available, Clegg's will be valued most for those times when speed and convenience are the cook's top priority. Better Homes and Gardens Book Club alternate; author tour. (Apr.)