This is an essential guide to fast and delicious healthy cooking in minutes. You can make the most of your indispensable time-saving appliance with this useful and accessible guide. It explains essential techniques and terminology, such as shielding, rotating and scoring, plus a description of cooking terms and methods. It shows you how to make a quick risotto, bake potatoes in minutes, cook pulses in a fraction of the usual time, and create perfectly smooth sauces with ease. It includes recipes for quick and easy soups, starters, main courses, vegetables, desserts and bakes. It includes advice on suitable ingredients and timings for best results every time you cook. Fewer kitchen appliances are as useful to the home cook as the microwave. Not only does it cook food more rapidly than a conventional oven, it does so superbly well. Almost anything, from a simple tomato soup to dinner party dishes, can be cooked in the microwave, and some types of food are particularly well suited to it. Fish and seafood are ideal, as their delicate texture is preserved.Vegetables are cooked to tender-crisp perfection within minutes and although cooking rice and pasta may not save you as much time, using a microwave does guarantee successful results. The practical advice in this book will help you make full use of your microwave.