Quick and Easy Dinner Ideas - Boon for a Hectic Lifestyle

For busy lifestyles that we follow these days, there is need to look for quick and easy dinner ideas so that we can plan our meals accordingly. What we all need is that take some time out of our busy schedules and do some planning beforehand during weekends. Thus planning things ahead of time for the entire week and buying all ingredients will help you to properly plan your weekly dinner menu.

These ideas will surely help you to adapt to any rush situation during dinner time. One such superb idea is preparation of quick dinner recipes.

Pasta is quite an easy meal to cook. Every time you wish to make this meal try some fried vegetables with pasta and also add cheese to it. The sauce that is served with it can either be made on your own or any readymade one can be bought from store. Spaghetti and other sauces can very well go with the pasta recipes that you prepare. These go great with Alfredo sauce also. Other quick and easy dinner meal ideas include meats such as chicken breasts, ground beef or even seafood.

Easy dinner ideas for chicken include either roasting, barbequing or sautéing it in olive oil and simply adding mushroom soup cream to it for flavor and gravy.

Casseroles are also of great help, they can make a great recipe within minutes. Take for example green bean casserole which includes green beans, cream of mushroom soup with French fried onions. Let the whole mixture bake for 30 minutes and your recipe is ready.

Last but not the least, if your kitchen pantry is well stocked then it greatly helps you to make quick easy dinner recipes. Simply by keeping the essential ingredients in your cupboard, fridge and freezer will help you to make quick and easy dinner recipes that too with less effort and time.

Of course, the choice of what you buy from the store greatly depends upon what you would like to prepare in your weekly menu. It should always be based on what your family's likes and what kind of easy dinners you wish to make the entire week. You need to choose 5 or 6 quick and easy recipes which require staple ingredients for them.

Things that are stored in your kitchen and which are readily available to you can also help you to cook everyday meals in minutes. Thus keeping things in line can help you to prepare health dinner meals for the entire family and avoid chances of eating outside junk food.

Catering Menu Ideas: Consolidating a Successful Menu

The pressure's on. We've all been to weddings or events where the food has been the talking point, for all the wrong reasons- and it really shouldn't be!

In some cases, it's the chef or caterer that drop the ball, either through un-inspiring food or poor menu writing. Other times, it's the clients, who may have great catering menu ideas in their minds, or what they believe their guests will enjoy, but needed a little expertise and guidance to bring those ideas to the plate. That's where we can help. Below is a simple list of steps to planning your crowd-pleasing classic.

The exercise is adaptable to catering menu ideas and formats, for all wedding or special event plans, whether in a restaurant, a venue, marquee, or private property or home.

Step 1: Select Format

Four or five hours goes by very quickly, and format can be the difference between mingling, dancing, and boring.

Canape/Roaming

What: small 'bites' of finger food and larger substantial dishes roamed by wait staff for the duration of your event. Items can include any ingredient under the sun!

When: you're looking promote a casual, relaxed atmosphere for guests to mingle within the crowd. Also much easier to promote novelties like lawn games, or the dance floor.

Careful with: amounts of food. Too little and the big boys might be driving through Maccas.

Too much and you could be stuck with an unnecessary food bill and plenty of waste.

Mix it up: try a roaming entree or dessert, with a classic seated main dish in between for a touch of formality/order.

Buffet

What: large dishes with sides on a central table for guests to plate themselves.

When: you want to give guests a little more choice in a relaxed environment.

Careful with: 'tackiness'. A well presented, tasty buffet with up to 15 dishes is great. A tired table containing the 'same old' roast lamb and cold pumpkin is not. If it belongs at the RSL, it doesn't belong at your event.

Mix it up: you could add a roaming course to a buffet also. You could break the classic buffet in to stations around the room, avoiding long lines and offering a chance to theme each station.

Share Plates

What: bringing a small buffet station to each table. Guests share large platters of food brought to their table.

When: you're promoting communal or 'family' dining. A good ice-breaker for guests meeting at the table, or a nice touch for the family to 'break bread' and try many dishes.

Careful with: underestimating this option as 'easy'. Plates need to be set and cleared, then replaced for each course, while the platters are often heavy too. Cutlery also. This format contains the most wait staff labour.

Mix it up: deliver platters 'prepped' or segmented, and have your guests finish the dish at the table before serving.

Seated

What: classic seated dining with carefully plated dishes through a number of courses.

When: you want to offer guests a formal dining experience. Though the above formats are great, you could say when this is done correctly, it is the most successful.
Careful with: trapping guests in the same seat for too long. 'Beef and Chicken'- see below.
Mix it up: add a cheese and port course. Or a chocolate course? Mmmmm...

Step 2: Select Menu

• VARIETY is essential. Whether canapes, buffet or plated, it's great to offer your guests as much variation in protein and cuisine.
• Seafood, lamb, duck, chicken, veal- use all the crowd-pleasers in your catering menu ideas.
• Spicy, crispy, sharp, creamy, crunchy, raw, cooked- mix up the textures.
• 50-50 dining is not a rule. Make an exception! Serve your guests one central dish and add 4-5 sides for the variation.

How to Cook Leeks and Pasta

Leeks are a very good ingredient, only it's seldom used in Italian cooking. Only in this dish I'm writing, it will actually kill everything.

Take three leeks, big and chunky, cut them longways and wash them thoroughly. Next cut them about one inch thick from head to toe. About the width of the pappardelle we're going to boil for this. The pappardelle are an Italian pasta you can find at any supermarket, somehow resembling the Tagliatelle only a bit wider and thicker. check out the width of them and try to cut the leeks at about the same size.

Take a pan, put some olive oil in it and put it on medium heat. Next finely chop a garlic and throw it in there to simmer a bit. Don't keep it too long, if the garlic burns it will screw up the entire dish. Or any other dish for that matter. When the edges turn brown you can throw the leeks in there. Don't add water, add half a cup of white wine. Table wine would be best, you don't need to go for any fancy expensive wine when cooking. Salt and pepper to come next.

Now, take some prosciutto, which is the extremely finely sliced Italian smoked pork, that you can also find at any supermarket and cover the entire pan in it. Basically, your leeks don't need to breathe and by covering them in smoked pork you don't allow them to. Cover the dish up and let it simmer there for about 25 minutes.

In about 20 minutes, with 5 minutes remaining of the leeks and prosciutto, boil water for the pappardelle. By the time you remove the pan of leeks from the heat source you can pour the pappardelle into the boiling water. They usually boil for about seven to ten minutes. in the meantime take out the slices of prosciutto and finely chop them into ribbons. Put them back with the leeks and mix them up thoroughly. Next take out a chunk of butter and some grilled cheese and add them in. By this time the pappardelle are done boiling. Take them out and put them over the leeks. Be careful to keep some of that water in, but only a little. Now mix furiously. The heat of the pasta will melt the butter and cheese and it will al mix with the prosciutto and the leeks.

Now it's ready to serve. It's a great dish, and you can probably imagine the taste of pasta with leeks and smoked pork boiled in white wine.

How to Cook Pasta With Cream

This is a delicious and rather cheap recipe. You'll need tagliatelle pasta, about 200 grams of cream, two egg yolks, 75 grams of grated cheese and spices.

First, take a bowl, fill it with water, add a few drops of olive oil and salt and set to boil. This is where we are going to boil the pasta. The reason you should add a few drops of oil is that it prevents the pasta from getting stuck together. When the water is boiling there's a tremendous chance the tagliatelle will get glued to each other which will make them harder to mix afterwards and there's a chance they won't cook inside if they're knotted together.

Next, take a plate that's deep enough to contain all your other ingredients and large enough to rest on top of the pasta bowl which is on the heat source. While the water heats you put the cream in the plate above the bowl. Add spices and herbs. I suggest salt, pepper, perhaps a bit of rosemary or thyme. Start stirring. As the cream gradually heats because of the steam coming from below, it will become less consistent and easier to stir. When the water starts to boil and you add the pasta, put the plate back on and add the grated cheese.

Stir continuously. The pasta will need about five to seven minutes to cook. When you think your pasta is nearly there, add the egg yolks to the mix and stir. Then what you will have to do is drain the pasta but do not rinse them in cold water or discard the bowl you boiled them in. Take the plate with the cream mix and set it aside, drain the pasta in the sink then quickly put the pasta back into the still hot bowl and add the cream and egg mix over the pasta. Start stirring like your life depends on it.

Now, the eggs you added when the pasta was almost finished are not cooked, but the heat from the bowl and from the drained pasta will cook them to the perfect temperature without the eggs becoming crusty.

Stir and mix the entire dish, then serve immediately. This dish is best served hot, as the white sauce will not be as tasty when it dries.

Just remember that what you're doing is that you actually pre heat the cream and cheese and you cook the eggs right into the hot pasta. The entire dish takes about ten minutes, it's extremely fresh and very consistent.

How to Cook the Best Roast Potatoes

What you need to do first is pre-boil the potatoes. Clean them and slice them if they're too big in chunks. Not too big, not too small. If they're too small chances are they'll mash together and if they're too big they will be undercooked or raw on the inside. I assume you know your potatoes, so cut them in slices that will not endanger your food in either way.

When you boil them add a bit of oil and salt to the water. Oil will make them absorb anything easier later. While you do that heat up the oven at about 200 - 250 degrees and ready a pan. Next you will need to grease that pan with whatever strikes your fancy. Olive oil is the healthiest thing. Next comes butter, which is my personal favorite. Cut off a chunk and throw it in the pan and spread it around evenly on the bottom of the pan and the sides. For an extra crunchiness, use goose fat. Goose fat is not that health but it will make your potatoes heavenly tasty and crispy.

Let the potatoes boil for about 7-10 minutes. You don't need to actually boil them through only pre boil them so they're ready to absorb anything you throw at them. By staying in the oven they'll cook all the way through, so if you boil them too much at first they'll just mash. It's important you put the potatoes in the pan on a single layer, so every one of them is resting on the bottom of the pan, not on top of another potato. Put them in the oven for about 20 minutes. When you take them out you'll see a crispy crust developing on their upper side. Now comes the best part, the actual tricky part, which is the key element of these potatoes.

Take out a masher and gently press them. You don't need to mash them, only open them up a bit. Due to the crust they should crack without mashing. Now take a bit of vinegar and pour it over the potatoes. It's vinegar, so be careful with quantities. I'd say a tablespoon, perhaps two, depending on how many potatoes you've got in the pan. Also add rosemary or thyme, not both, salt and pepper and a couple of garlic cloves. Put that thing back in the oven for another twenty minutes. You don't need to stir or anything. Take out and serve. I guarantee these are the best roast potatoes you've ever eaten.

How to Cook Shiitake Mushrooms

The Shiitake mushrooms have a certain chemical component in large amounts called guanosine monophosphate. This is actually the base of the flavor which actually stimulates the taste up to the point they developed a word for it: umami. Up to now it was salty, bitter, sour, sweet, basically what the human mouth could identify. Now it's umami as well. Since they bothered to unveil a whole new taste, Shiitake must be taken in consideration as a serious competitor for any other mushroom out there.

Therefore, Shiitake mushrooms are perhaps the most aromatic mushrooms known to man.

They will liven up any dish you put them in and they are extremely healthy. They contribute a lot to the immune system, lower cholesterol and side they're incredibly meaty and rich in protein they can be used as a viable substitute for meat. They are all grown organic, because there's no other way really to grow Shiitake, which is a good thing for people who like their food grown raw and natural, without the chemical add-ons the current world is so fond of using.

Shiitake may come in two forms: raw or dry. There's no difference really, they cook the same and they taste the same. You can buy raw and dry them yourself. Which again is a good thing, because they don't need any other ingredient to prolong their life in dry form.

You boil them as follows: pour boiling water over them, cover then wait for 20 minutes. It's pretty simple. Discard the stems afterwards. The stems are not really bad but they're very hard and woody and you're better off without them. Or you can cut them off and use them in your next stock.

The recipes are no different than any other mushroom recipe: olive oil, garlic and herbs on a grill will do just fine. Or go all Asian and serve them on a plate of rice with oyster sauce to match. The only thing that's different is: do not throw the water you boiled the Shiitake in. That water is exceptionally tasty and full of umami, so you'd better boil some rice in it, or use it in soups or stocks, it will definitely be a cornerstone for your cooking.

They can also go well on side dishes too, even though I'd strongly suggest Shiitake as a main component for people who would like to turn vegetarian as it makes the transition from meat-filled dishes to no-meat-filled dishes seamlessly.

Does Cheese Make Your Teeth White?

We think of cheese as a good pairing for wine and even as a good match for a sweet or rich dessert like hot apple pie. How about cheese as an antidote for the staining and discoloring of your teeth that all those sweet and acidic treats can bring?

Cheese Neutralizes Acid PH

Hard Cheese like Cheddar contains alkali. It helps neutralize the pH of the mouth after imbibing in wines for dinner or for holiday cheer. It also helps stimulate saliva production, which in itself reduces the mouth's acidity. So serving cheese with wine is a perfect pairing not just for the taste, but for the health of the mouth as well. It must be a hard cheese to accomplish this, however. Soft cheese like brie, camembert or feta will not have as much as an effect.

It should be noted that many things increase acidity in the mouth (and hence, staining) and can be balanced out by eating a simple block of cheese:

· Wine, red or white

· Fruit juice

· Coffee or black tea

· Cherries or other berries

· Cola

The acidic environment is unhealthy for the mouth because it is healthy for types of bacteria you do not want growing in your mouth. So, eating just a small piece of cheese is going to neutralize this environment, and render the environment negative for this bacteria.

Calcium and Phosphate Increase Health of Teeth

Cheese, along with other dairy products like milk and yogurt, contains a high level of calcium and phosphate. The calcium and phosphate in cheese re-mineralize the surface of the teeth, helping them to look healthier and whiter. The healthier one's tooth surfaces are, the whiter they will appear, and the more impervious to stain they will be.

In learning about staining our teeth, it's interesting to note that anything that will stain a white t-shirt will stain our teeth. Drinking a glass of water after eating staining foods helps to wash the matter away from our enamel in the same way that saliva helps.

Hard Cheese Helps Clean Teeth

Cheddar and other hard cheeses actually have a cleansing action and helps to remove food particles from teeth by their crumbling texture. So the process of eating the cheese actually helps in some small way to clean the teeth.

According to a study by the Academy of General Dentistry, it takes only about 1/3 of a slice of cheese to elevate pH for 30 minutes after eating and this creates a "mouth-saving effect" of neutralizing the acidic pH that would damage enamel. The other essential effect that is created by eating cheese is something called "sialogogue," which refers to the salivation creating properties of the cheese. The impact of increased salivation helps render the acidity in the many foods listed above powerless. The study found that cheese actually protects your teeth from acid erosion.