Calaveras Enterprise

Recipe: Easy Cheese Tortellini Casserole




Jenny Baxter/Calaveras Enterprise

Jenny Baxter/Calaveras Enterprise

I know you will all agree that the cost of purchasing groceries has skyrocketed! I cannot seem to leave any market with an amount under $100 when shopping for food.

Ben Franklin is not worth what he once was. Even the less expensive cuts of meat are no longer that. Ground beef used to be a couple bucks a pound. Now to get good ground beef — I like grass fed — it costs me almost $10 per pound. The same with corned beef. Once it was $3 a pound or slightly more, and now to get the nitrate-free version, I am paying $10 a pound.

Tomatoes are another example of an over-priced, less quality product. Five dollars a pound for a nice heirloom tomato is absurd! Will this madness stop?

I have thought about leaning more towards eating less meat and more meat-free meals. Not so much vegetarian, just less animal protein in my diet. It made me recall when I lived in New York in the ’80s, when I was a full-blown vegetarian. We had a friend who was in tip-top shape, no illnesses, looked fabulous physically and he was a vegetarian.

My hair-brained idea was to follow suit. Every Saturday morning, I made four loaves of bread, oatmeal yogurt and cinnamon, two loaves of each. I also made our own mayonnaise, which I still do today, our butter in my KitchenAide mixer, and of course, all foods from scratch, which I still like to cook this way, especially desserts and main dishes.

I did most of our shopping at the health food stores to make sure everything was organic, which was as popular then as it is today. My family went along with it for a while. I discovered my kids were trading lunches at school for meat sandwiches, and sneaking Ho-Hos and Ding Dongs into their rooms when other parents were having problems with their kids hiding “pot” in their bedrooms. And my husband, at that time, was eating all his lunches at the Fire Island Coast Guard station, which served plenty of meat.

The night I made spaghetti and meatballs, using oatmeal as a base for the meatballs, was “the straw that broke the camel’s back!” He demanded meat on the table from then on out and boy were my kids happy! I have come to learn, since then, that I can still eat less meat, eat healthier, and not be as stringent as I was in my earlier years of cooking. Live and learn is the motto I live by today!

• 1 package tortellini
• 3.5 ounces oil-packed
dried tomatoes, drained
and chopped
• ¾ cup grated Fontina
cheese
• ¾ cup grated fresh mozzarella cheese
• ¼ cup grated Parmesan
cheese
• 4 eggs, slightly beaten
• 1 ¼ cup half-and-half
• 2 Tablespoons minced
Italian parsley
Grease a baking dish
with butter. Place the UNCOOKED

tortellini in the dish. Top with the tomatoes and cheeses. Set this aside.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and the half-and-half until combined. Pour this mixture over the tortellini, cover, and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Uncover the dish and bake for 40 minutes. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving. Sprinkle with parsley. Serves six.

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