Yet Byrn's own recently remodeled kitchen is as cool as a late fall breeze, or it was on a recent visit while she prepared a few easy recipes from her new book, "The Dinner Doctor."

Cooks and non-cooks alike have bought more than 1.5 million copies of her two dessert books. During seven recent appearances on QVC, the television shopping station, she presold 50,000 copies of "The Dinner Doctor" book. All three titles are published by Workman. ("Dinner Doctor" is $26.95 hardcover, $14.95 paperback.)

The new book focuses on providing mostly fresh, healthy meals. It shows how to take easy shortcuts by using fresh foods that have had a step or two cut out to speed up a recipe.

Most of the recipes in "The Dinner Doctor" save time in the kitchen by using top-quality convenience products. Unlike a lot of processed foods, these convenience foods -- such as precut broccoli or tomatoes, shredded cheese and fresh salad greens from the bag -- have few ingredients. In addition, she sometimes recommends cooking foods at higher temperatures than old-fashioned recipes to speed up the cooking time.

Byrn has created foods with fresh flavors and popular combinations that don't taste like they ever had anything to do with a can or freezer for that matter.

One of her family's favorite dishes is the spinach and black bean lasagna. The spaghetti casserole for a crowd is always popular when she takes it to gatherings.

Byrn, who is a fifth-generation Tennessean living in Nashville, calls herself a Southern cook, and her combinations of flavors and methods reflect her heritage. Some of the places where she looked for inspiration were old-fashioned church cookbooks, which almost always had recipes for casseroles and sweet desserts -- especially cakes made with cake mixes that made her other books so popular.

"People like to use cake mixes because they are so moist and dependable," she says.

You'll find recipes for mini ham biscuits so often served for brunch and a casserole made with cream of mushroom soup.

"I can't wait until the media get a hold of this," she said of her use of prepared products such as the mushroom soup and Velveeta cheese. "I tried all kinds of things to get the creamy consistency, but nothing worked like the soup," she says.

"I've revamped several of them to lighten them up," she says of the casseroles in which she has used low-sodium and low-fat foods whenever possible. Many of these recipes are found in the book's "One Dish Comfort Food" chapter.

Her Southern style of cooking sets her apart from some other current cookbook writers who have a similar notion about using convenience foods. She stresses using convenience foods with as few ingredients as possible.

"Read the labels," she says. Note the order in which ingredients are listed. The larger the quantity of the ingredient used, the closer it is to the top of the list. Also, be sure to check the freshness dates on the packages, especially on produce such as the slaw, she says.

Recipes in "The Dinner Doctor" cover everything from appetizers to desserts, with chapters on soups and stews, pasta and casseroles. There's also a "hands-off cooking" chapter that has recipes using a Dutch oven or slow cooker for long, slow cooking that needs little tending.

On the recipe pages and on pages between them, Byrn has compiled all kinds of useful cooking tips, such as 15 ways to put your slow cooker to best use, 15 ways to doctor cooked rice, frozen spinach, frozen peas or blueberry muffin mix, among others.

Other books by Anne Byrn

-"The Cake Mix Doctor" (Workman, $25.95)

-"Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor" (Workman, $26.95)

-"Food Gifts for All Seasons" (Peachtree Press, $15.95)

On the Web

-www.cakemixdoctor.com: This site allows readers to sign up for her free bimonthly newsletter.