What are your preferred recipes for mulled wine?

Recently I bought a bottle of red blend wine that turned out not to be to my taste for drinking, but I don't want to just pour the whole bottle out since I've only had a glass. The thought occurred to me that I could try my hand at making mulled wine, but the amount of recipes out there were a bit daunting. So I turn to y'all for help.

If it works for pineapple...

...it doesn't necessarily work for blueberries. There's nothing bad about it, but blueberries just don't hold up as well as pineapple as a topping. Their flavor's not as strong and they might as well not be there. Maybe they don't have the sharp acidity that makes pineapple stand out.

I don't know how they are all facing the same direction. I just tossed them randomly. My strange luck again.

The recipe was simple: Preheat oven to 500° F., oil the pan with avocado oil, spread out the dough, lay the sauce, sprinkle with ground black pepper and green chili flakes, cover with shredded mozzarella, lay the pepperoni, cover with more mozzarella, lay the blueberries, and bake for 10 minutes.

I have a chili recipe I'm wanting to try that calls for one cup of frozen lima beans (plus canned pintos and various other ingredients). Unfortunately, while I can find dried limas and possibly canned, I can't locate frozen. Is there a problem with soaking dried limas and subbing them for the frozen? Or can I soak, cook, and freeze them if they're dried and not fresh?

The only frozen bean I can be sure of finding, apart from string beans/waxed beans, are edamame.

Thanks!

I've never been good at figuring out the cooked yield (in cups) from dry/raw ingredients. If I want to use 168g (roughly 6 oz) bags of shiratiki noodles to replace 8 oz of dry noodles, how many bags/drained cups of noodles should I use?

A convenient breakfast for the holidays when you've got the eggnog and you don't want to make breakfast tomorrow.

Mix up 1/3 cup rolled or old-fashioned oats, some fruit or nuts (I used slivered almonds, pecans, and coconut), a pinch of salt, 1/4 cup eggnog, and 1/3 cup milk, sprinkle cinnamon on top, and let it sit in the fridge overnight. The next morning all the liquid will be absorbed and the oats will be soft and sweet from the eggnog, so no sugar needs to be added.

If you don't have eggnog, you can use other dairy such as milk, kefir, or yogurt. You can also mix in wheat germ, chia seeds, and other healthy fillers.

Cherry-Walnut Sauce for Ham

2 cups canned sour cherries in water, liquid reserved. [I used 2 15-oz cans and ended up a little over 2 cups, worked fine]
2 tb cornstarch
1/3 cup sugar
1/8 ts salt
2 tb lemon juice (about half a largeish lemon)
1/3 cup broken walnut meats

Pour liquid from cherries into a saucepan. Add cornstarch, sugar, salt and lemon juice, stir well to mix, and cook over medium heat, stirring until thick and clear. Add nuts and cherries. Bring to a boil, check to see if it needs salt or a little extra lemon juice, and serve hot.

This would probably go well with lamb or duck as well.

I hadn't made this in ages and figured this was as good a time as any to try it again. Delicious and easy.

For various reasons I won't subject you to, I'm in the process of equipping a new kitchen. Among the basic tools I need is a proper ladle; the plastic ones I've seen claim to be safe to 400°F/200°C. I make a lot of my soups in a covered glass dish in the microwave, and I understand that a microwave is capable of superheating liquid beyond the 212°F/100°C boiling point (as discussed here.)

So can a plastic ladle--dipped into the heated liquid, not left in the dish to cook!--stand up to that, or should I spring for metal?

ETA (9/23/16): I'll admit to having been shopping at the bottom of the retail food chain, at Big Lots and Walmart; based on everyone's advice, I think I'll go with a metal ladle at the moment (although silicon could further my determination to mark my territory in teal.) Thanks for your help, everyone!

FETA (Further Edited to Add--11/13/16): I now have two steel ladles, acquired for a total $2.64 USD from an area thrift store that accumulates a lot of housewares.

At a breakfast buffet this past weekend, I accidentally wound up combining the two in a chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter incident; the combination was unexpectedly glorious. Not a recipe so much as a suggestion: a peanut-butter-and-blueberry sandwich could be a potential quick breakfast or school lunchbox item.