I use cottage cheese also. (DH loves it and eats it like it is ice cream as a snack) My trick so i don't need to buy ricotta is to first put the cottage cheese alone in the mixing bowl and smash it with a potato masher tool. Just takes a minute and breaks up the curd. Then add the tomato, etc. Most NY pot-luck baked ziti from an Italian deli is so darn dry. (and probably prepared a day in advance). Needs moisture while it cooks. Sometimes i'll put a bottom layer of thin sliced sweet potato, zucchini, caramelized onions with mushrooms... I always make a veggie one that i've put in a layer of spinach. Extra veggies. Always the bottom layer so the pasta top 2/3rds stays creamy. Crisping the top is what makes it so delish and special. Any time you can get a full and filling meal in one pot is a winner. You have a good recipe. So much better than a basic Mac-n-greasy-cheese. I satisfy the meat eaters by tucking proscuito all over the top. Pressing it in with some staying on top to crisp with the final cheese crisping and bubbling. I don't cook for kids that often so your pre-made meat-balls is a really good solution.

Last night (pre-Xmas Eve): Vinegared cucumber Salmon seared with teriyaki glaze Tempura broccoli, carrots, and mushrooms French fries A mediocre French wine with a deceptively promising label Today am: Roesti Pork sausage Scrambled eggs Toast with Accidental Sausage-Potato Gravy Tonight (Xmas Eve): Spinach-corn salad Escargot Cracked crab Creamed corn Flan dessert A hopefully better wine Tommorrow am (Xmas Day): Bagels and lox Dutch Baby Some sort of egg-sausage casserole Mimosa Tomorrow dinner: Roast chicken Mashed potatoes Accidental Sausage-Potato Gravy By the way, here is my recipe for Accidental Sausage-Potato Gravy: - receive instructions from wife to cook up 4 packages of maple pork sausage for her casserole - receive instructions from son to make roesti - place sausages in two large pans, cook in water, remove cooked sausages to sheet pan and broil for brown-ness - put julienned potatoes in same pans and cook, adding more water as needed - remove potatoes and make roesti - notice that cooking water from sausages and potatoes is dark brown, flavorful, and starchy. Decide not to throw it out. Boil it down in the pans and end up with Accidental Sausage-Potato Gravy.

For Prime Rib this is the most amazing recipe and may be the one mentioned, it will scare the heck out of you at first but follow the rules!!! On another forum I was on for years so many people used this recipe it became one of the ones that stayed up all the time. So it is very very tried and true!! Prime rib Cover prime rib with olive oil. Press on garlic pepper/kosher salt seasoning (the kind with big chunks of salt, very coarse pepper)� (Or use the McCormick Montr�al Pepper blend) Preheat oven to 500 degrees F. Yes, that's right, 500 degrees. When it's HOT HOT HOT, put the uncovered roast inside. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN even once during the entire process. Leave the oven turned on for 8 minutes per pound of roast (minimum of 40 minutes). Then shut the oven off and leave it in there for a TOTAL of 2 hours (combined HOT time and REST time) Take it out and cover it with tin foil. Leave it rest on the counter for 15 minutes before cutting. It will be perfectly dark pink in the center, juicy and flavorful. During the time that the oven is turned on, you will hear sizzling and popping and smoke may even come out of the oven. Do not let this alarm you. Shut the kitchen door and keep the smoke alarm in the house from going insane. The smell will drive you crazy, but you must resist the temptation to open the oven and peek. The reason this method works is because the initial high heat seers in the juices. The outside of your roast will be crispy and delicious. The inside will be tender and just plain good This year I decided I am not cooking, I have been having problems with my back and just am not feeling up to it so we are looking for some place that will have a good Christmas dinner or buffet. If anyone knows of any restaurants that will be doing that please post it. We used to go to a wonderful place about a mile from here but they have since changed owners and the new owners are not doing that. Someone told me Cracker Barrel does it??

You've been won over to the wonder of electric roasters. Now you see why I threw away my slow cookers! I've made yeast breads, sweet breads, biscuits, rolls, meatloaves, burgers, pot roasts, baked potatoes, soups, stews, chilis, casseroles and much much more in my 4 qt and 6 qt Nescos. I use it to cook up ground meat (sometimes adding onion) to freeze. This saves mess when I need ground meat for a casserole, soup, chili, etc. I recently did about 18 pounds (in 3 batches) using my 6 quart unit. It's so nice, you don't have to constantly attend it like a frypan or stock pot. A few stirs and it's cooked up, drain it, bag it, freeze it and one ease pot to clean. I don't know of anything you can't bake in an electric roaster that you can bake in a conventional oven. And you can do a number of things in an electric roaster that you cannot do in a conventional oven. Because mine are smaller ones I've never tried a pie in there before although it would probably work fine. In the big one you have, pies would work well too, as would cakes, even cookies and bars. BTW, that cauliflower looks GREAT! I believe the Oster is similar to the Nesco in that the heating element is not in the bottom like a slow cooker, rather in the sides. You still will want to use the rack for a lot of things, not for fear of burning the bottom but for better air circulation. As for your romertopf , don't take this as gospel, but I'm guessing that as long as you don't have it ice cold you should be fine. If you're concerned, you could bring up the temperature of the roaster more slowly to condition and heat it. But I'm not sure you really need it. The electric roaster will probably do pretty much the same thing. I don't know what size you have so that could make a difference and you might want to have the romertopf in there while cooking something else along side of it, I don't know what you want to do so I can only speculate. Enjoy that roaster oven. I know you will love it more every time you use it. There's slight differences in using a roaster oven and you'll learn as you go. For one thing there's more moisture in a roaster oven than a conventional oven. This can impact things like browning birds and the like, but that's easy to work around, at least for me. One tip, you can do multi-level cooking if you have the rack like the one that comes with the Nescos. If you don't have one like it (the 2 tiered rack) you can still make your own or rig something. Using my mothers roaster I used Corningware covered dishes and the big glass raised knob worked fine to set another one on and it cooked fine. You need space between them for air circulation. So many times when I see these large roasters for $15-$25 I've thought about getting one, but just can't justify it. I don't cook for large groups anymore but it's such a bargain. Then I can't help but laugh seeing people buying slow cookers for $100 or more! They just don't know what they're missing! Happy cooking.