Let’s face it, cooking is not a top priority in the lives of every man, woman, or child on the planet. In fact, far too people have made learning to cook a priority in their lives. This means that we often exist on convenience foods and boxed mixes rather than taking the effort to prepare healthy meals for our families and our own personal enjoyment.

The same holds true for lunches when we often resort to a can of soup or box of macaroni and cheese or some other such product rather than putting our creative efforts into making a quick and easy yet delicious lunch. You will see many ideas in this article and the hope is that these ideas will not only get you off to a great start for ending the lunch rut we all seem to find ourselves in at some time or another but also to try new things on your own.

First of all, not all great lunches require actual cooking in order to prepare. Some of them will require the use of the microwave and some of them will need to be cooked or at least prepared before hand and reheated. The choices are virtually limitless once you understand the creative concept that must be in place. You should also find that many of these ideas are so simple you will wonder why on earth you have never thought of them. I certainly hope that some of these ideas will become main features within your own home.

Lettuce wraps. These mike delightfully delicious lunch treats and the filling can be prepared ahead of time, which leaves only reheating the filling and wrapping when you’re ready to eat. This is a fun lunch to share with your little ones and it teaches them that lettuce is much more versatile than people often give it credit for being. Some people choose to go with a teriyaki inspired filling; my family likes taco inspired fillings for our lettuce rolls. You are perfectly free to come up with a favorite filling of your very own.

Try sandwiches with different breads. Believe it or not, my children love trying new things. It’s a rare trait for which I am extremely grateful. Believe me I understand all too well how fortunate I am. My youngest however, has a little difficulty with thick or crusty bread. Her favorite sandwich choice has become Hawaiian sweet rolls. We put the meat, cheese, mustard, and pickle in her roll as if it were a bun and she’s thrilled. Other great ideas include hollowing out crusty rolls and filling them with roast beef and cheddar. You can broil this in your oven for a few minutes for a rare sandwich treat. The cooking part is very minimal and you do not have to have in depth knowledge of anything to prepare or enjoy these simple treats. Other great bread ideas include croissants with ham and cheese or chicken salad, taco pitas (another great favorite in our household), and paninis (this works really well if you have a George Foreman grill or a panini press).

While this is by no means the end all be all guide to cooking quick and easy lunches it is good food for thought. The hope is that this will get your own creative juices flowing so that you can prepare wonderful lunches for your family without needing to do too terribly much heavy cooking in the process.



By: kimberly valerio

About the Author:

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Hot summer days are upon us, a perfect time for family backyard barbecues, picnics, and other fun events. And what comes to mind when we think of barbecues? Well burgers are on the top of my list and are also fairly reasonably priced at the grocery store when comparing other meats.

But what can we do to spice up those burgers, other than the everyday lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and barbecue sauce? When you think about it, there are numerous things you can do to offer a unique take on the hambuger.



Below are some choices to get you started



Steak sauce instead of ketchup

Fried green tomatoes

Zucchini

Spinach dip

Macaroni and cheese

Pineapple rings, lightly cooked on the grill first

Fried red onions

Bacon

Mozzarella cheese

Thousand Island dressing

Feta cheese

Salsa

Avocado

Mushrooms

Guacamole

Sour cream

Roasted red bell peppers

Green peppers

Thinly sliced creamed cucumbers

Potato chips

As you can see, there is lots of potential when spicing things up with the ho hum, everyday burger. You can use each of the items above alone, or you can of course combine them for variety. Give your taste buds a kick and try them out. You may just find a combination that will be a big hit with your family and guests.

I have personally tried steak sauce, fried green tomatoes, thousand Island dressing, mushrooms, bacon, and feta cheese, and spinach dip on burgers and they are all excellent. But the secret to a really great burger is trying various combinations to your liking. The food items mentioned in this article are just some examples to get you started. There are many other foods that you will thinik of and may like to try. The sky is the limit.

 



By: Tammy Embrich

About the Author:

Student Loan Consolidation

At times people think vegetarian food offers no variety at all. To prove this myth wrong, switch to Italian vegetarian recipes. These are a great combination of excellent food & vegetarian needs. You can enjoy a wonderful meal while adhering to your food needs. This is due to the fact that vegetable go much in tandem with the Italian cuisines. These recipes are are not just healthy & harmless, but also culminate to a great taste. They are also royal and indeed unique such as Zucchini Corn & Tomato Au Gratin, Eggplant Parmigiana and Vegetables & Beans Alla Veneziana.

Lets have a glimpse of these exquisite preparations:

1. Appetizers

Pre meal dishes in Italian vegetarian offer a wide variety of salads. To name a few:

i. Panzanella Salad

ii. Rotini Salad teamed with Feta Cheese & Black Olives

iii. Italian Potato Salad served with Sun Dried Tomatoes

iv. Pecorino & Basil Crostini

v. Rocket (Arugula) & Baby Corn Panzerotti

vi. Tomato Bruschetta

2. Pasta

Pasta is an exclusive Italian delicacy and are surely world-known. While there are several traditional pastas to choose from, with time many new & modern styles of cooking pasta have come in to being. Some not-a-miss vegetarian pasta varieties are:

i. Eliche Arrabbiata

ii. Linguine teamed with Spinach Pesto

iii. Rigatoni with Gorgonzola

iv. Fusilli teamed with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto

v. Courgette

vi. Spinach & Wild Mushroom Lasagne

vii. Cannelloni teamed with Ricotta Cheese in Red Wine Sauce

viii. Manicotti served with Artichokes in Green Tomato Sauce

ix. Capellini in Tomato & Basil Sauce

x. Conchiglie Genovese with Coriander Pesto

xi. Spicy Vermicelli with Oyster Mushrooms

xii. Macaroni with Cheese

xiii. Fettuccine served in Creamy White Sauce

xiv. Tagliatelle with Tomato Sauce

xv. Penne Pesto

xvi. Spaghetti served with Olive Oil & Garlic

xvii. Farfelle Marinara

xviii. Pasta Primavera

3. Gnocchi Dishes

Another exquisite Italian specialty, the gnocchi dishes just like the other categories offers lot of variations. Some of these are:

i. Gnocchetti served in Pomodoro Sauce

ii. Potato Mushroom & Chives Gnocchi

iii. Spinach & Ricotta Cheese Gnocchi

iv. Pumpkin & Semolina Gnocchi

4. Risottos

Italian vegetarian cooking is almost filled of surprises. One among them are the risottos. Some unbeatable risotto recipes for the vegetarians are:

i. Alla Pomodoro

ii. Risotto Alla Milanese

iii. Risotto served with Porcini Mushrooms

iv. Baked Brown Rice served with Roasted Vegetables

5. Sauces

Italian food is served with varied sorts of sauces. Some of the known favorites among Italian vegetarian sauces are as follows:

i. Almond Butter Sauce

ii. Basil Garlic Sauce

iii. Herbed Mushroom Sauce

6. Pizza

It won’t be wrong to say that pizza is among the most commonly prepared Italian dishes across the globe. Its list can be just endless. However, they are all based on the fresh dough pizza bases. The base is then garnished with the favorite toppings like:

i. Thin Crust Gourmet Vegetarian Pizza

ii. Deep Pan Pizza Margherita

iii. Cheese & Mushroom Calzone

iv. Spinach & Feta Cheese Stromboli

7. Desserts

Enjoying a rich vegetarian diet and ending up with sweets is a sheer treat for one & all. Desserts in the Italian recipes have a special space and these recipes are indeed different & unique in taste. To name a chosen few, these are:

i. Risotto & Rocket Pie

ii. Vegetable & Rice Timbale

iii. Red Pepper & Spaghettini Flan

iv. Tiramisu

v. Lemon Vanilla Panna Cotta with Wine

vi. Fresh Cherry Sauce

vii. Strawberry Cheesecake



By: Abhishek Agarwal

About the Author:

Toddler Bedding

Making your own pasta sauce recipe is an easy, healthy and cost-effective way to get dinner done. When you learn some basic procedures, it becomes simple to make a variety of sauces to suit almost any pasta. And since you are controlling the ingredients, you know exactly how this sauce ranks on the healthy scale. A great added bonus to going homemade is that making your own sauce will even save you money over buying the jarred variety. Really - there is no reason making homemade sauces shouldn’t become a part of your cooking toolkit - a skill you’ll be able to use almost every day. Let’s review the procedures of three of the most popular and common sauces you’ll encounter when making pasta.

Become a Master of the Marinara Sauce Recipe

Tomato Sauce is one of the five “Mother Sauces” in French culinary and the starting point for any marinara sauce recipe. There are two parts to this sauce that are made separately with their own procedure and then come together at the end: tomato concasse and a sauce “base”. The sauce base can be meat, vegetables, broth, seafood - whatever you will be using to make YOUR marinara sauce recipe. Tomato concasse sounds fancy, but it simply means a mixture of tomatoes coarsely chopped. But - there is a trick to getting this mixutre sans seeds and skins. Here’s my quick technique for blanching tomatoes, which is the first step in making tomato sauce:


Core tomatoes on one end and score an “x” on the other side with a knife. This will be where the skin peels away during boiling. Place tomatoes in a pot of boiling water. When the skin at the “x” has peeled back, it is time to remove the tomato and shock it in an ice water bath to stop the cooking. This will vary by tomato due to size and ripeness. Peel and seed the tomatoes. Peeling should be very easy. If it’s not, the tomato didn’t stay in the boiling water long enough.

Depending how you’d like your marinara sauce recipe to end up, you can puree the tomato concasse or keep it chunky.

Now, onto the sauce base. For a simple marinara sauce recipe, you will probably keep this vegetarian, adding vegetables if you prefer a chunky sauce or vegetable broth if you prefer a smoother sauce:

Saute chopped onions and garlic in a hot pan with a small amount of olive oil. Add your tomato concasse (or puree). This is also where you’d add any other vegetables, like mushrooms or peppers, to your tomato sauce. Add vegetable broth and reduce to almost dry. Add tomato paste to thicken and color - heat through. Add the seasonings of your choice. Basil and oregano are the common ones, but experiment to find what you like.

You’ve now got a great homemade pasta sauce recipe that you can make almost any night of the week. My guess is that this process would take you about 30-45 minutes to prepare. During this time, your pasta is cooking and your meal is ready in under an hour!

Make any White Sauce Recipe with One Procedure

When you think of a white sauce recipe, most often what you are imagining has its roots in the French mother sauce, bechamel. Bechamel forms the foundation for every white sauce recipe - including the favorite fetuccine Alfredo or even the classic macaroni and cheese. The key to making this velvety white sauce smooth is knowing how much milk to add. This is something that is best determined with your eyes - not a recipe!

You start by melting butter on the stove and then removing it from the heat. As you add some flour - a little at a time - you will be watching for the mixture to thicken up to the consistency of wall paper paste. When it does, you’ve got roux and it is time to return to the heat. Your goal here is to cook the proteins out of the flour. You will know this has happened when the majority of the roux has turned from yellow to white. During the process, you will smell a toasty smell as the proteins cook out. Now you can start adding milk. This is the most important step in making this sauce so take your time here. You will continue to add milk - a little at a time - until the sauce stops thickening. So here’s the process:

Add some milk and stir. Stop stirring and observe. If sauce starts thickening back up over the heat, add more milk. Continue steps 1-3 until the sauce doesn’t thicken back up (in step 3).

I like a garlic flavor to my white sauce recipe so here’s a trick for adding garlic, but not adding the lumps of chopped garlic. I simmer whole garlic cloves in the sauce for a bit and then remove them before serving. This will infuse a nice garlic flavor into my white sauce recipe. Finally, if you are making an Alfredo (or macaroni and cheese), this is where you would add your favorite cheese(s), stirring over heat as they melt.

A Buttery Garlic Sauce Recipe in Less then 30 Minutes

I saved my favorite garlic sauce recipe for last for a couple of reasons. First, it is a great sauce because you can make it rather quickly, using ingredients you most likely have on hand. However, this homemade pasta sauce recipe can be a little bit trickier than the first two, which makes some shy away from it. But, don’t worry. With a few tips, you’ll be making this one like a pro tonight!

Again, we start with one of the French culinary mother sauces - this time: beurre blanc, a saute of shallot (with garlic) and any liquid mounted with cold butter. The trick to this sauce is to always keep the butter yellow. If your butter stays yellow, it means that the sauce has not broken. Here is my best tip for keeping the butter yellow in your garlic sauce recipe. This is one time, we don’t start with a hot pan (as we normally would in saute method). The cold pan and cold butter hit the heat together. To melt the butter, without burning it:

Melt a little bit of butter. Remove from hit and swirl around to melt more butter Return to heat for a couple of seconds to get the butter hot again. Remove from heat and swirl around to melt more butter. Repeat steps 1-4 until all the butter is melted.

When the butter is melted, you add your shallot and garlic and saute, but you don’t want to brown anything here. Controlling the heat (so as not to separate the butter) is the most important secret for success when making this sauce. Keep the butter yellow - can’t stress that enough! Once the shallots and garlic have cooked to become translucent in color, add a cold liquid (usually white wine) and then cold butter, cut in consistent squares. If the pan starts to get too hot (as evidenced by white specs floating to the top of the butter), you will remove it from heat and add more cold butter to cool the sauce quickly. You can always heat it back up again when you cool it - but you can’t fix it once it has actually broken. When you are satisfied with the consistency and flavor of the garlic sauce recipe you’ve created, add salt and white pepper to taste and serve on your favorite pasta.

A great pasta sauce recipe starts where all sauces start - basic cooking methods and the “mother sauces” of French culinary. You don’t have to be a chef to apply these techniques and make everyday cooking at home easier, tastier and cheaper than eating out at your favorite restaurant.



By: Chef Todd Mohr

About the Author:

Phantom of the Opera

Every mother wants the best for her child.  You want your child to look healthy, grow proportionately, feel energized and have a great immune system.  So, why do most parents in America feed their children junk food by the time they start eating table food?  Why do most restaurants serve French fries or macaroni and cheese for side orders and not steamed broccoli?  It is really a sad situation to watch young children who are obese.  Even schools offer peanut butter and jelly or ice cream for lunch. 

To ensure that your child is eating correctly you must feed them plenty of fruits and vegetables.  But the trick is to make it delicious and fun.  For instance, for breakfast, arrange a platter of fruit, oranges, grapefruit, bananas, strawberries, blueberries, they will love it!  Make faces out of the fruit.  Have them drink only water and no sugar 100% fruit juice that you juice yourself.  Get them used to eating vegetables that are uncooked.  Whenever they get hungry, offer small baby carrots, or celery, they will grow to love the taste just the way it is.  You can introduce a new vegetable each week and learn how to hide it into your food.  For instance, chop up Portobello mushrooms in a chopper and add it to your pasta sauce and watch them gobble it up, barely noticing the mushrooms.  Make blanched broccoli (plain) and eat that for dinner.  If they see you eating healthy, they will learn early on to eat that way.  Do not let them eat packaged foods, such as macaroni and cheese, or fried chicken fingers, or anything fried for that matter.  Make sure that they eat vegetables at every meal and be careful when you go out to eat. 

Offer natural desserts that you have made at home, such as homemade sorbet, or fruit smoothie, or peach cobbler pie (all natural).  Stay away from cakes, cookies, etc that have preservatives and other unnatural flavorings.  Make it yourself and offer it occasionally.  You will find that they watch you and what you eat and if you incorporate a much healthier menu, so will they. 

The best part of raising your children to learn to love fruits and vegetables is that you will notice that they will turn down junk food when you are not around.  At that point you will know that you have done your part in raising healthy adults.



By: Nicholas Tan

About the Author:

Foreign Exchange

Society today is very tired and overworked. Everyone is busy and running at a fast pace each day. It does not matter what the reason is for the hectic pace of your lifestyle, your time is precious and needs to be managed effectively. You need cheap meal ideas to help you stretch your time and money while still providing a wholesome and nutritious dinner for you and your family.

The fast food makers know how little time we have and use this very thing to make themselves successful. The idea of coming home after a long day at work and cooking for four or five people is not something we tend to look forward to on top of preparing for the next day and trying to get the homework done. This is why they offer you cheap meal ideas that require no cleaning, no cooking, and only 25 minutes to pick up.

Mothers and fathers are the first to take a run to the drive through to avoid the hassles of grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning up after dinner so they can go home and relax a bit before they need to wake up and do it all over again. The problem with this is that eating so much fast food will inevitably cause obesity and is not the healthiest choice to consider. There are some very cheap meal ideas that take almost no time to prepare and will make coming home to a good meal more bearable.

The first cheap meal idea includes meat, vegetables, and pasta or rice all in one dish. To make a quick stir fry, begin with some thin slices of meat. Beef is good and chicken will also work. Add a modest amount of soy sauce to the meat. Cook until done completely. In the same pan, add a bag of stir fry vegetables to the mix. Add a cup of water to the mix as the vegetables are heating to make a sauce of sorts. While the meat and vegetables are cooking, get out a bag or two of the boil in bag rice. Let this cook as the rest is heating. When the rice is complete, put a helping on each plate and cover with the stir fry vegetables and meat. Not only is this a cheap meal idea, it is also fast; it can be made in only 20 minutes.

You can whip up a hearty batch of pancakes and scrambled eggs for the family in about 30 minutes or less. If you think it is strange to eat breakfast food for dinner, consider how these same foods give you what you need to go through an entire day. Another one of the cheap meal ideas to try is a simple macaroni and cheese with meat dish. The ground beef or turkey only takes 20 minutes to cook through and the macaroni and cheese can be finished before the meat is. For an added flavor, add one small can of tomato sauce for a tomato macaroni dish.

When you fix one of these or other cheap meal ideas at home, you are taking time out of your busy day to treat yourself and your family special.



By: Jude Wright

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Buying Car Insurance

Chicken is a basic ingredient in most kitchens. It’s more nutritious than red meat and there are so many ways to make it. Try these suggestions the next time you’re hungry for chicken!

1. Have you tried steaming it? This is perfect for a quick meal for one or two. Put a boneless, skinless chicken breast into one of those zippered steaming bags that you can find in your grocery store. Sprinkle in a little seasoning salt, some fresh ground pepper and a couple Tablespoons of BBQ sauce. Zip the bag closed and give it a shake. Cook it according the directions on the steaming bag: about six minutes for a chicken breast.

Be careful when opening- it will be hot and steamy! You will be amazed at how tender and juicy the chicken is- in no time and NO mess!

2. Make your own gourmet pizza! Use Alfredo sauce, if you like or BBQ sauce add your chicken breast, some mozzarella and bake. Who needs take out?

3. Citrus chicken sandwich- Want a sandwich that looks gourmet and tastes that way too? Brush a chicken breast with oil and grill until done. Slice it horizontally and then toss it up with a squeeze of lime juice, some sour cream and a Tablespoon of sweet chili sauce. Serve it on a crusty roll with some crisp lettuce and spinach leaves.

4. Marinate boneless skinless chicken breasts overnight, covered with Italian dressing. These are best cooked on the grill, but you can broil them as well. Toss the extra dressing. Because of the dressing, this will tend to flare up if you aren’t careful, so keep an eye on it. It’s worth the trouble.

5. Make kabobs. Cube chicken breasts and skewer them with alternative chunks of peppers, onion and zucchini. Brush with olive oil, squeeze on some lemon juice and grill or broil.

6. Cube the chicken breast and stir fry in wok or skillet until starting to brown. Add a bag of frozen broccoli, cauliflower and carrots. Season with lemon pepper. Turn the heat to med-low and cover. Simmer for about 6 or 7 minutes, stirring once or twice, until veggies are done, but still firm. Serve it up!

7. Cut chicken breasts into small strips or cubes and brown. Add one can cheddar cheese soup and ½ cup salsa. Heat through and spoon ¼ cup of the mixture onto one-half of warmed, soft flour tortillas. Moisten the edge of tortilla, fold over and press down the edges to seal. Bake in 325° for about 5-7 minutes.

8. Add chicken breast and broccoli to creamy macaroni and cheese. This is best if you use the creamiest macaroni and cheese you can. Choose homemade, frozen or the shells and cheese brands.

9. For a Mediterranean style chicken flavor, mix diced cooked chicken with some plain yogurt and Greek-style seasoning mix. Serve this on a croissant or in a pita shell.

10. Fry chicken breasts lightly in olive oil. Add sliced onion, chopped red pepper, zucchini and a clove of garlic, diced or crushed. Fry for just a few minutes and add some dried basil and a can of chopped tomatoes. Cover and simmer 15 minutes. Take off the lid and simmer 5 minutes longer. Serve with rice.



By: Christine Steendahl

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Webhosting for SEO

Item: On any given day, customers at Fresh Fields grocery stores across the country have

a choice of 35 to 40 varieties of fresh pasta, ranging in flavor from squid ink to garlic

parsley. If none of those is suitable, special orders can be made from a list of a whopping

208 pasta varieties.

Item: The average American consumer ate 18.4 pounds of pasta in 1990, up from 12.9

pounds in 1982 for help visit www.apples-recipes.com. The National Restaurant Association estimates that by the year 2000

we’ll be eating 30.6 pounds.

Will we ever get our fill of fettuccine with pesto,

ricotta-stuffed ravioli, linguine in clam sauce or just plain spaghetti and meatballs? Is

there a saturation point, when we finally say basta (enough already)?

Not anytime soon, according to the folks who track America’s eating habits and also

(not surprisingly) those who market Italian foods. A study last year by the NPD Group

Inc., a Chicago research firm, shows that pasta ranks second among the top five growth

foods in the last five years. The study tracked eating habits of 2,000 households over five

years, and compared 65 foods and beverages to determine which have grown fastest in

consumption. Soft drinks led the list, followed by pasta, chips, turkey sandwiches and

ready-to-eat cereals.

Consumers cited two main reasons for their enchantment with noodles: Pasta is easy

to fix and it’s healthful. Digging into a bowl of complex carbohydrates is good for the

body (unless, of course, those noodles are covered with such less-than-healthful but

delectable items as cream, prosciutto and/or Gorgonzola).

“Not only is it convenient to prepare, but it is considered quite good for you,” said

Harry Balzer, NPD vice president when he presented the five-year study last April in

New York.

And a Gallup survey last May of more than 1,000 grocery shoppers found that 52

percent said they were eating more pasta than in the previous year. In that same poll 92

percent said pasta was “convenient”; 93 percent said it was good for them.

“I love it, I try to eat it at least three times a week,” says Sharon Stilwell, manager

consultant for Relcon Inc. in Oak Brook, Ill. “It’s a food that instantly rejuvenates me.

When I’m at home, I fix it simply, with just a little olive oil and Parmesan cheese.

Maybe I’ll add chicken if I have leftovers. When I eat out, I’ll be more extravagant

although I try to stay away from heavier sauces.”

Italian restaurants continue to proliferate. It’s the No. 1 ethnic category in the United

States, according to the National Restaurant Association. Excluding pizza places, Italian

restaurants increased 135 percent between 1985 and 1993, from 4,438 to 10,435, according to the Restaurant Consulting Group in Evanston, Ill. This compares to an increase of only 12 percent for all restaurants during the same time period.

“Oriental and Mexican restaurants still head the list (in numbers of ethnic

restaurants), but Italian restaurants are increasing more rapidly,” says Millie Lemajich,

director of information services for the Evanston group.

Nationally, the ubiquitous Olive Garden chain, which started with two restaurants in

1982 in Orlando, now has 432 and is averaging 50 openings a year. A new kid on the

block is Macaroni Grill (owned by Brinker International of San Antonio, owner of the

Chili’s restaurant chain), which has 27 outlets nationally.

“We opened June 2, and we were having two-hour waits right away,” said David

Hyre, general manager of the Wheaton, Ill., restaurant, which offers a variety of pastas

and sauces for help visit www.bread-machine-cookbook.com. “We did research before we came here, but business is better than we ever

anticipated.”

One reason the love affair with pasta should continue is its vast variety–spaghetti

and meatballs will forever be dear in American hearts, but pasta lovers today have an

ever-widening choice.

Macaroni and cheese becomes penne con cinque formaggi (tube pasta with five

cheeses).

Spaghetti with red sauce can be tagliatelle al ragu (ribbon pasta with meat sauce).

“It’s a food that people are familiar with, but at the same time, customers are

becoming so aware of the different kinds of pastas, of all the different shapes and the

way pastas can be prepared,” says Paul LoDuca, chef/owner of Vinci, and the new Italian

seafood restaurant Mare in Chicago. “Between both restaurants, we’re serving 18 or 19

types of pasta.”

Jonathan Fox, executive chef of Maggiano’s Little Italy in Chicago, refers to some of

the unusual shapes as “designer pastas.”

“For example, radiators (radiatori, which resemble little heaters), and little Christmas

tree (shaped) pastas; there are a lot of interesting shapes. But pasta is pasta, and more

important than shape is how it’s prepared.”

Cathie Weinberg, media communications manager for the Olive Garden chain, also

reports a large increase in pasta varieties and toppings in the last decade.

“We’ve seen tremendous changes. We’re adding ingredients we didn’t offer before,

like capers, chopped olives, sliced peppers. There’s so much of a variety that I don’t see

the market becoming saturated for a long time. There’s room for lots of restaurants.”

Macaroni Grill pushes the envelope when it comes to offering new and different

pasta dishes. One of its biggest sellers, according to manager Hyre, is fried pasta; he calls

it “an Italian nacho.”

Value is another attraction. Ninety six percent of the shoppers surveyed in last year’s

Gallup poll said they liked the cost. When it comes to eating out, a bowl of pasta is

certainly cheaper than a steak or most French food. And portions often are staggeringly

large.



By: ANILSHARMA

About the Author:

Trim Dog Nails Safely