Hi Everyone

Patti, Ruby and I met on March 20th.  We had some really good food.  Here are the results:

Patti used Valerie Bertinelli's One Dish At A Time cookbook.

1. Lasagna Alla Besciamella on Page 133- recipe was easy to follow, not expensive and taste was VERY GOOD.  The recipes for the meat ragu and besciamella were on page 134.  Patti did say that the Pomi Strained tomatoes were a bit expensive but well worth using.  She would not change anything in the recipe.  I tasted the lasagna and I would say the taste was WOW.

2. World's Easiest Quickbread on page 82- recipe was easy to follow, not expensive and taste was VERY GOOD.  Patti said that she thought you could add rosemary or herbs of your choice to bump up the flavor if you wished.

3. No Crust Quichettes on page 13- recipe was easy to follow, not expensive and taste was VERY GOOD.  Patti said that she used olive oil like the author said to coat the muffin tin and that she would never do that again.  The quichettes stuck to the pan, making the pan very hard to clean.  She would try solid shortening instead.

4. Chicken With Prunes and Olives on page 141- recipe was easy to follow, expensive to make and taste was VERY GOOD.  She said she used green olives instead of the garlic stuffed olives because the garlic stuffed olives were very expensive.

All in all, she would use this cookbook again.

Ruby used Olivia Newton John's Livwise.

1.Mushroom Soup With Lemon on page 124- easy to follow, not expensive and taste was VERY GOOD. She would add a teaspoonful of salt to the recipe.

2. Red Kidney Bean Dip on page 72- easy to follow, not expensive and taste was GOOD.

All in all she would use this cookbook again.  She said it had unique wholesome recipes that are healthy and worth the time.

I used Mr. Food Test Kitchen-Just one More Bite:

1. Blueberry Cheese Breakfast Tartlets on page 13- easy to follow, not expensive and taste was GOOD.  Just make sure you really stretch the dough in the cupcake pan, otherwise you will not be able to fill the tartlet with the best part, the cheese filling.  Don't buy the jumbo biscuits if your pan is a regular sized muffin pan.

2. Rolled Italian Meatloaf on page 72- easy to follow, not expensive and taste was GOOD.  I would not use mozzarella in the loaf, I would use cheddar cheese and I will try using spinach in place of the basil next time.  Also, I would use a mixture of beef broth and tomato sauce to cover the loaf instead of just tomato sauce.  When tomato sauce is cooked down on the loaf for an hour it tastes like tomato paste, a little to strong for me.

3. My Mom's Stuffed Cabbage on page 70- easy to follow, not expensive and taste was VERY GOOD.  I used red cabbage and though the taste was good it was a pain to wrap around the meat mixture.

4. Easy Friendship Bread on page 20-easy to follow, not expensive and taste was VERY GOOD.  All in all, I would use this cookbook again.