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Happy Labor Day Weekend

Stephanie — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:38:51 +0000

Summer comes to another close this year. This means we are sending kids back to school, and getting into new routines. CopyKat is celebrating our weekend with a cocktail party. While it may be our last long weekend of this summer, we are going to enjoy ourselves with a party in the evening. I am grateful for the group of friends that I have as they get to try out new recipes, and see how they rate against the restaurants that they come from.

Here are a few of the things that we will be serving up.

Ina Garten’s Pan Fried Onion Dip – This is a rich, and flavorful onion dip, I promise once you make this recipe just once, you won’t by buying this at the grocery store again.
Chihuahuas Port Sangria – If you have never tried Sangria you have been missing a real treat. Sangria is typically a full bodied red wine with other types of liquors, fruit, fruit juice and much more. These are wonderful because you can pour this over ice, and enjoy a cool and refreshing drink.
Chart House Spinach Salad – Salads are so nice and refreshing, we like this salad because it has enough bacon, eggs, mushrooms, and more to make it filling. Since this salad is made with spinich it won’t wilt as quickly as other salads may.

In addition to these items, I will be serving up olives, fruit salad, some other salty snacks. We hope that you and your family will enjoy a safe weekend.

Happy Labor Day Weekend is a post from: CopyKat Recipes | Restaurant Recipes

What’s New July 30

Stephanie — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:19:10 +0000

We have been busy working in the background. We know have a free notification system to let you know when we have a new posting. You will be sent a free email. So if you like to subscribe you can do so on the upper right side of the page, be sure to click on the link of your verification email that you will receive. This email may go into your spam folder, so be on the look out for it.

We have also added tags, to make searching for recipes even easier, you can click on those tags for recipes you are interested in. We have also retested out our search engine as well to make sure it is optimized for you.

Now let’s go onto what’s popular!

The best chocolate chip cookie ever

Olive Garden Salad Dressing

How to make Sweet Ice Tea

Buffalo Chicken Dip

How to make Alfredo Sauce

PF Changs Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Outback Steakhouse Blooming Onion Dipping Sauce

Jack in the Box Rice Krispie Shake

How to cook a bisket

Olive Garden Alfredo Sauce

Be sure to vote in the new poll! We want to know what recipes you want to see!

Happy Cooking!
The CopyKat Crew

What’s New July 30 is a post from: CopyKat Recipes | Restaurant Recipes

Why Cook At Home?

Stephanie — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 02:47:17 +0000

Cooking at home has many benefits. You can save money from cooking at home. You can prepare food exactly the way you like it. You can also have more control over what you eat when you prepare it yourself. These are just a few of the benefits of cooking at home. There are more benefits from cooking food at home, but let’s look at each one of those statements closely.

You really can save money from cooking at home. Going out to dinner costs both money and time. Let’s look at how long it takes to get to a restaurant, you have to get into the car, drive there, park, wait in line to be seated, wait for your service, wait for your food, eat your meal, then you get to do all of this in reverse. So this could take an hour or longer, not to mention the cost of the fuel you spend on getting there. Often you can prepare a meal in 15 to 20 minutes. Cooking a meal often costs much less than buying it already prepared. Let’s say I want to make a spaghetti dinner for 4, a box of pasta costs around 1.30, a pound of sausage or ground meat 4.00, spaghetti sauce 5.00, you can add in some bread and garlic butter for around another 3 dollars. So for 17 dollars you can buy 4 servings of spaghetti sauce with meat, whereas in a restaurant, you are paying at least 9 dollars a plate. Here alone you are saving half of the cost of the meal.

So often restaurants add in extra salt and fat to make food more tasty. There is no doubt that extra fat and salt enhances the flavor of many meals, but often these two ingredients are over used. Cooking at home allows you to chose how much salt and fat to add into your food. You can also spice a dish more if you desire, if you like your food spicy, you can make it spicy at home. When I prepare salads at home, I add in toasted nuts, this isn’t something I can get at a standard salad bar. If I want a little extra fresh chives on my baked potato, I can add those at home, I can’t do that as easily in a restaurant.

When you prepare food at home, you can control how you prepare the food, you control the portion size. Sure, getting a to go box is easy to do when your food comes, but it seems really hard to divide up the food in half when it comes out. We tend to over eat when we go into restaurants, portions are typically large, and if you are enjoying the people you are dining with, you may have the tendency to overeat. When you are home, it is easier to serve up right sized portions or even to package them up for lunch the next day.

These are just a few of the benefits of cooking at home. You really can save money by cooking at home. Cooking your own dinner often costs far less than its counterpart in a restaurant. You can prepare food how you like it, perhaps you like a little less salt, or maybe you like it spicier. You can save time, by cooking at home, you don’t have to leave, find parking, wait for your service person, you are totally in control when you prepare food at home.

Why Cook At Home? is a post from: CopyKat Recipes | Restaurant Recipes

Getting ready for the July 4th weekend

Stephanie — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:35:28 +0000

Many of us are going to be getting for the July 4th weekend. For so many of us this means getting together with friends and family and enjoying their company around an outdoor grill. Grilling up hamburgers and hot dogs, steaks, veggies, and other goodies is certainly the way many of us pass the holiday. We will highlight many of our favorites that so many of us enjoy over the years. We like to plan out our menu with items that typically will be on sale during this weekend. For us that means stocking up on extra soda, potato chips, a brisket or two, and a few other goodies. Here are a few recipes that will be making an appearance at our table sometime over this weekend.

Better than KFC Cole Slaw – we love this recipe, you can make it a day or two ahead of time and enjoy it when you like. You can use pre-packaged shredded cabbage to help save time, or you can buy fresh cabbage and chop it up yourself.

Kenny Rogers BBQ Sauce – this goes well on either chicken or beef. Best of all you can make this recipe ahead of time, and use it when you are ready.

Jell-O Poke Cake – This can be made as a double layer cake or you can make this as a 13 x 9 rectangular cake. We suggest that if you are feeling festive you can use a red and blue Jell-O for patriotic colors.

We had recently spent a long weekend in New Jersey with several trips into NYC. I had the pleasure of taking one of my dearest friends there, and meeting with my favorite Russian family. I was fortunate enough to get one of their Gefilte fish recipe, so be looking for a recipe for gefilte fish soon. I have a couple of pot luck dinners coming up, so I know what I am serving up. We also did manage to have some cheesecake at Junior’s, of which we have a recipe for here. It was excellent to have a New York Style Cheesecake in New York City. We also had hot dogs at Nathan’s. It certainly feels like we ate our way across Manhattan. We look forward to sharing more of our visit up there with you in the future.

Have a Happy and Safe Holiday Weekend!

The CopyKat Crew

Getting ready for the July 4th weekend is a post from: CopyKat Recipes | Restaurant Recipes

This week at Copykat.com 6-21-2009

Stephanie — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:17:17 +0000

We have been spending a lot of time updating our photos. This weekend was spent cooking many of our recipes, and taking photographs. We know that most of us like to look at a real picture of a recipe before we cook it, so we can get some idea of what our dish is to look like. We have added pictures of the following:

Outback Steakhouse Dipping Sauce

Outback Steakhouse Aussie Fries

Mexican Cornbread Casserole

Boursin Cheese

Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana Soup

We have enjoyed getting photos prepared for everyone. We have been in our new format for just about a month now, and we hope that you find the site easier to navigate, and more helpful. We love providing you will free restaurant tasting recipes. This week will be posting the Jack in the Box Mini Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches recipe.

Happy Cooking!!

The CopyKat Crew

This week at Copykat.com 6-21-2009 is a post from: CopyKat Recipes | Restaurant Recipes