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Photo 8/10
Dessert: Coffee Cake in a Mug
No meal is ever complete without something sweet at the end. This treat doubles as dessert and a decadent brunch dish.

Ingredients:
Cake batter:
1 tablespoon softened butter
2 tablespoons white sugar
1/2 beaten egg
2 tablespoons sour cream
2 drops vanilla extract, or more to taste
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon baking powder

Topping:
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

Directions:
Stir softened butter and white sugar together in a coffee mug until fluffy; stir egg, sour cream, and vanilla extract into the butter mixture. Add flour and baking powder into the mixture; stir until smooth. Mix the topping ingredients in a separate bowl and mash the butter into the mixture with a fork or pastry cutter until mixture is crumbly. Then sprinkle it over the cake batter in the mug. Cook in microwave on high for 1 minute. Then continue cooking in 10-second intervals until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Source: Prudentbaby.com

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Dessert: Baked Apples with Frozen Yogurt
Dessert: Baked Apples with Frozen Yogurt These candied apples are deceptively easy to make and relatively healthy.

Ingredients:
2 apples
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp butter
Frozen yogurt

Directions:
Core the apples, leaving the bottom intact. In a bowl, mix the brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Spoon the sugar mixture into the apples and set a teaspoon of butter on top of each apple. Place the apples in a deep casserole dish and cover with wax paper. Microwave for 3 1/2 to 4 minutes or until tender. Let the apples sit for a couple minutes before topping with frozen yogurt. Sprinkle some cinnamon on top, then serve.

Source: Mark X. Dowling, Vice President of Academics & Executive Chef of the Escoffier Online International Culinary Academy

If you still can't give up your frozen meals, at least check out this list of the best and worst picks from the frozen food aisle. See the 10 Best and Worst Frozen Foods now.

Think "microwave meal" and it likely conjures up a lot of unhealthy images -- from your college days, when all your meals came from a mini fridge and a microwave to your current world, where your full-size freezer is stocked with Lean Cuisine.

Let's face it: Meals you can nuke come in really handy. But they also come packed with a lot of bad-for-you ingredients -- from too much sodium to surprisingly high fat and calorie counts. But while microwave meals can be total diet bombs, they don't have to be. Tons of chefs, restaurant owners, and even Food Network stars all agree that you can use your microwave to actually cook healthy meals that don't come packaged in a box in the freezer aisle.

Skip ahead to see the 8 easy microwave recipes for gourmet meals now.

"Put fruit in a crepe for dessert, broil fish with some lemon juice, brown a potato casserole -- there are gorgeous, easy microwave recipes that you can whip up fast; you just need to be willing to experiment," says Mark X. Dowling, Vice President of Academics & Executive Chef of the Escoffier Online International Culinary Academy.

The biggest misconception people have about microwaves is that they can only be used to reheat meals or cook pre-packaged foods, says Dowling. And what he wants everyone to know is that microwave cooking is a viable way of cooking. And here's some more good news: Since you're not coating the food in oil or fat when you cook in a microwave, the method can actually be a lot healthier than cooking that same food on the stove or a grill.

So, we asked Dowling and some of the most ingenious cooks in the country to give us meal ideas for breakfast, lunch, and dinner that require nothing more than a cutting board, a mixing bowl, and a microwave. That's right, these 8 easy microwave recipes are tasty, healthy, and seriously easy to whip up fast.
BY SHARON J. YI | SHARES
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