I've used the Bertolli 3 cheese tortellini to make a salad a bit more substantial and served as a main course. Chunks of a good mozzarella, red pepper, lots of onion, garlic, plum tomatoes, cucumbers, and any other veggie you choose to add. Top with a vinegar, olive oil, and freshly ground blsck pepper dressing. As a second dish, raw broccoli and cauliflower in a vinegarette dressing is also quite tasty, and a complete vegetarian dish. Serve a side plate of salami for those who prefer a bit of meat. Thin slices of Italian bread spread with a bit of pesto and baked is good hot or cold. Plain bread with a dipping sauce is very easy also. I make my dipping sauce with a good VVO, balsamic vinegar, and toasted garlic. Easy and delicious. Annie, all very catchy titles!!

This has been a favorite for years. Even with people who turn up their noses at the thought of oysters. COTTONâÂÂS N'AWLINS OYSTER DRESSING - (Stuffing) I don't have a 'recipe' for this, but this is what I do: 1 stick butter or margarine - (1/2 cup) 2 ribs celery, chopped 1 large onion, chopped 3-4 green onions, chopped 1/2 bell pepper, chopped garlic powder, salt, pepper, dash of cayenne Saute the above in the butter till tender. Add 2 pints oysters (save the oyster liqueur). Saute until edges of oysters curl. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, pinch into bite-sized pieces 2 baguettes of crisply toasted French bread (approx. 12 cups?). Add the oyster liqueur, 4 beaten eggs, and a pinch of salt. Add the sauteed mixture, with oysters, at this time. If mixture is too firm, add a little milk until you get the desired consistency. Put into lightly sprayed/greased 9x12x2 (?) baking dish. Bake, uncovered, at 350 for approx. 35 to 45 minutes. You don't want it to dry out, so check at 35 min. I can't get fresh oysters here, so use 1 can of whole oysters and about 1/2 a can of smoked oysters. Yum!

THANK YOU, LAVENDER, for alerting me to the danger of glycation. My best dinners were made in a slow-cooker (low heat with plenty of liquid), rather than fried !! Here's the link to my Pinterest slow-cooker recipes: THANK YOU, VAPORVAC, for setting a good example of hot whole-grained cereals for breakfast. I used to do the same, but neglected that, thanks to eating my kid's pickiness. https://www.pinterest.com/clonewar/slow-cooker/ My sister convinced me to buy a pressure-cooker, and it WAS HORRIBLE IN TASTE. The temp. was so high that it ALTERED FOODS and made everything stinky, be it cooked beans, meat, or soup. I used that a few times, and never again !! I boiled chick-peas in that pressure-cooker, and it stank so bad my kid complained loudly & I trashed the whole mushy pot. Compare that to aromatic chick-peas boiled with low-heat over the stove top, which retained its firmness & flavor. I use the microwave to quickly heat up food (with liquid) to zap out germs, rather than long cooking high temp. like pressure cooker which destroys food. Cooking food to death is not a good idea. The high-heat destroys proteins 1st, but microwaving vegetables with water for a short time to kill germs .. that still retains nutrients and beans & peas are still bright green. I checked on the nutrients retained with microwaving veggies vs. steaming veggies, and microwaving FOR A SHORT TIME IN WATER retained more nutrients, with less loss in water. My personal measure stick for AGE (advanced glycation end-products) is HOW MUCH JUICE I NEED TO DRINK to chase away the "stinkiness" or "rancidness" of high-temp. cooking or over-processed foods. More juice = more calories. http://www.diabetesforecast.org/2014/11-nov/foods-high-in-ages.html Which foods are high and which are low in AGEs. Protein-rich foods: Red meat and cheese tend to have the most. In descending order, chicken, fish, eggs, and legumes have less. Grains: Boiled grains, such as rice and oatmeal, and sandwich breads are low in AGEs. When grains are processed into crispy brown crackers or fatty cookies and sweetened with sugars, however, their AGE content can soar. Dairy: Milk and yogurt are low in AGEs, but when moisture is removed and fat is concentrated (as in cream, butter, and cheese), the AGE content rises dramatically. Fats: Vegetable fats tend to have fewer AGEs than animal fats. Animal fats are also more likely to be high in unhealthy saturated fats. To further reduce AGEs, cook foods at low temperatures and with lots of water-based moisture by steaming, stewing, poaching, and braising. Stay away from fried foods. deep-fried chicken has more than six times the amount of AGEs than steamed chicken. When you grill meats, marinating your food in an acid such as lemon juice or vinegar before cooking it will reduce AGEs by up to half. http://www.diabetesforecast.org/2014/11-nov/foods-high-in-ages.html

Not really. All I had was a cheap Walmart dehydrator with no thermostat. Shitaki mushrooms are tougher than the white button kind in the grocery, so I suspect they will take a bit more heat. Brush them off gently, you can wash before rehydrating them. If you plan to grind stems.. break them off and dry alongside the cap as it will probably take longer for them. They are pretty doggone hard, so you will need something with some umph to turn them to powder. I used a Vita Mix... the old stainless kind from the 1970s. That thing was a life saver for me. I ran my tomatoes raw through that and then through an old Wear Ever cone shaped potato ricer to take out skins and seeds. Bring to a boil before filling jars and processing to take out the excess air. Fast way to make the 40 quarts of so of tomato juice my DH could go through in one winter. Same with berries of all kinds, only I froze the pulp for making jam whenever we needed more. Peaches, plums, etc. went in raw. Apples, however, were washed, stemmed, quartered and then cooked.. they went directly into the ricer. Mostly they were turned into apple butter. We had keeping apples that held for most of the winter, in cold storage for fresh use. I'm rattling on again... sorry. I must be getting old. LOL Millie