Required Reading

The graphic on the cover of dancing headless chickens is a little unfortunate, but Rotisserie Chicken to the Rescue! (Hyperion; $14.95) by Carla Fitzgerald Williams is a potentially useful cookbook.

If you like the already-roasted rotisserie chickens available in the supermarket, here's a whole book of ways to turn them into meals. Chicken tacos, chicken lasagna, hurry curry and chunky minestrone are among the 125 recipes.

Some of them seem hardly less trouble than starting with boneless chicken breasts, but others are clever dishes that are a lot quicker than they would be from scratch. (Plus, you don't have to take the steps necessary when handling raw poultry.)

Many recipes use other convenience foods as well, such as a chicken a la king with a can of cream of chicken soup. Others, including cobb frittata or old-fashioned chicken sandwich, are quick because they're simple and straightforward.

Fom the book

Like all take-out foods, rotisserie chickens need to be handled according to safety guidelines. Here's advice from Carla Fitzgerald Williams in Rotisserie Chicken to the Rescue!

"Rotisserie chickens are so readily available that the United States Department of Agriculture has issued safety guidelines for selecting them and storing them. They advise you to follow the old food safety adage 'Keep hot food hot and cold food cold' when picking a chicken. The chicken should be hot when you buy it. Bacteria become active between 40 degrees and 140 degrees, so the chicken should be above that range when you buy it.

"Since the chickens should be hot, I suggest that you pick them up at the end of your shopping trip, like all temperature-sensitive food. You should either eat or refrigerate the chicken within two hours to help keep it safe. You should try to eat or refrigerate it more quickly in hot weather. Ideally, if you are going to refrigerate it, you should cut it into serving pieces and store, uncovered, in a shallow container to help it cool down quickly, covering the container when the chicken cools down. You can also shred it or chop it for a recipe and refrigerate the pieces."

Out to lunch

Speaking of rotisserie chicken ... Boston Market, which built its fast comfort-food brand on roasted chicken, has issued a "wellness guide" to help people pick meals that fit their approach to health or weight loss. The guide is available in restaurants nationwide.

Of course, everyone has to have low-carb choices these days. Boston Market has meals it calls "high-protein, controlled-carb" that include rotisserie chicken, steamed vegetables and Caesar side salad for 10 grams of carbs.

Its low-fat meals include rotisserie chicken with garlic dill new potatoes and sweet corn for 440 calories and 10 grams of fat.

It even touts vegetarian meals, such as seasonal fire-roasted tomato bisque, hot cinnamon apples, steamed vegetable medley and corn bread.