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.

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

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.

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

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

Our menu consisted of
Variety of olives
salted mushrooms – thanks to our local Russian store
pickled mushrooms – again thanks to our local Russian store
Cherry Tomatoes Tapinade – will soon be published
Stuffed New Potatoes
Bone in Ribeyes seasoned with Bulgolgi seasoning
Spanish Style meatballs
marinaded mozzarella salad
Garlic Aioli
homemade Foccica
Chickpeas with spicy Chorizo
Smoked Salmon
Cold Corned Beef

I am sure there were a couple of other things that populated the table. I personally used this occasion to clean out my refrigerator out on my friends. What are friends for? We also made two varieties of Sangria. I really feel like making your own Sangria is so much better than what you buy in the bottle, and you have the option of adding flavorings, and fruits that you really enjoy. Here was the recipe from the first batch of sangria we made.

Homemade Sangria
2 bottles Spanish Rioja
2 sliced organges
2 sliced lemons
8 oz. Fresh Apple Juice
4 oz. Fresh Pineapple with Juice
1 bottle San Pelligrino Sparkling Water
1/2 C. sugar
3 C. Grand Marnier
Combine all ingredients together, and mix well. You can add ice if you like. This is best served chilled.

The Grand Marnier was an accident, I was busy chatting with my friends when I was making this, and failed to realize how much I added until after it was done. This was a really good Sangria, and I look forward to trying it again. We did make a second batch of sangria, but since we re-used the fruit wasn’t anything to write home about, and we remarked what makes the difference between this and trash can punch? We thought it was being out of college for about 15 years, and using bottles that didn’t have screw tops to them.

Meanwhile we continue working on adding back all of our photos to our recipes. We hope that everyone enjoys having photos again! We are also putting the final touches on a Jack in the Box Mini Buffalo Chicken Sandwich. This will be our last Jack in the Box inspired creation, but we couldn’t resist another way of making buffalo chicken. So be looking for that to appear shortly!

Happy Cooking!
The CopyKat Crew

I spent about the next 2 hours or so, cutting the meat into smaller pieces and loading up my grinder, to where from my amazement, ground meat came out.  Ah, yes, beautiful ground chuck was going into my bowl, and then everywhere else.  Ground meat ended up on the floor, my dog did not complain, but it also made it all over the counters, the refrigerator, and in many places after a good cleaning I am sure will soon let me know what that lovely scent meat has after being left out for a few days.  I attempted to regrind my meat again, one of my best friends made some Swedish meatballs over the Christmas holidays that were to die for, and she thought part of this was due to the multiple grindings her meat underwent.  Upon the next grinding I had to apart my grinder and clean it out several times because stringy bits were getting caught in my grinder.

Now, after getting the meat ground, I did make some burgers and they were fantastic.  The meat was  so nice and fresh.  Being a single person, and now what to do with nine more pounds meat.  So it is going to be vacuum packed as soon as I post this and placed in my freezer.  Did the meat taste better? Yes.  Do I think that it was better quality than what I would buy in the grocery store, most likely.  I just found the cleaning up process to be a lot more involved than what I signed on for.  Now if I had someone to split some of the labor with, and then package up the meat I would do it again in a heartbeat.  At the very least I will be moving the grinder to a place where it will make a less of a mess.

1. How to make alfredo sauce – making alfredo sauce is easy, and tastes very sophisticated. You can make this with just a few ingredients, and we will show you how to make a restaurant style alfredo sauce that everyone will love.
2. Olive Garden Salad Dressing – Olive Garden is known for their fresh tasting salads that are served with every meal. You can make salad dressing similar to theirs quickly and easily.
3. Kenny Rogers Barbecue Sauce – these were popular restaurants in parts of the US a few years back, while you may not be able to go to one anymore, you can still have the taste made famous by Kenny Rogers.
4. PF Changs Soothing Lettuce Wraps - spicy chicken is enhanced by a cool leaf of lettuce. Don’t miss this one.
5. Buca di Beppo Chicken Marsala – this is one of our favorite dishes, it is easy enough to prepare on a week night. We love the tangy flavors, the mushrooms, the chicken, and the marsala wine. Cook up plenty of pasta to go with this one, you won’t want to miss any of the sauce.
6. Chili’s Southwest Egg rolls – Who doesn’t love an eggroll? These are unique as they have a southwestern kick to them. Enjoy black beans, spinach and more all rolled together.
7. Olive Garden Alfredo Sauce II – Even better than the original. Enjoy really authentic tasting alfredo sauce here. This recipe has been a favorite as long as it has been around.
8. Lentils – we show you how to make lentils. This recipe was inspired by two events, we had recently dined at a really nice restaurant and they served these. We also love that lentils are inexpensive to make, taste great, and cook up in under 30 minutes.
9. Outback Steakhouse dipping sauce – you know this diverse sauce can be used to dip in french fries, steak, chicken fingers, veggies, or just about anything else you desire. Check this dipping sauce out.
10. Joe Teece’s Chicken and Bow Tie Pasta – need to make a healthy and tasty dinner in just a few minutes? Don’t miss this one.

We have had an exciting week this week, with the redesign of the website.  We think that it will be easier to search, and easier for you to find exactly what you are looking for.  You can also search by keyword as well, so if you are looking for interesting chicken dishes, you can click on the work chicken, and take a look at everything that is available.  We look forward to your comments.

We also are RSS feed enabled, so if you use a service like Google’s feed reader, or other similar services you will be notified as soon as the site updates, you will be the first to know.  If you enjoy Twitter, and reading short little updates, we are on Twitter as well, you can follow us, we look forward to chatting with you on Twitter.  You can also make comments on postings as they happen.

We would like to share with you some of our favorite recipes for Memorial day.
Better Than KFC Coleslaw – This is one of our most popular recipes ever. Tasty coleslaw can be made at home, easily, and this tastes better than anything you can buy. To save time you can use pre-shredded cabbage from the store.

Missouri Style BBQ Sauce – Growing up in the midwest, all of our barbeque was basted with this terrific basting sauce, and then finished up with generally Kraft Barbeque sauce, but you could use your own favorite here. The basting really helps make the difference.

Ina Garten’s Pan-Fried Onion Dip – So Memorial day means picnics, and enjoying the day with loved ones. Potato chips served up with this incredible dip is so good everyone will wonder where you got the recipe.

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Starbucks Frappucino
Olive Garden Alfredo Sauce
Chipotle Mexican Grill Guacamole
California Pizza Kitchen Thai Chicken Pizza

So check out these recipes and many others.  Save money, and make recipes that taste like just like they came from the restaurant.

We are bringing back photos, and we look forward to your comments.  We still have things to add, please share your comments, and follow us on twitter.

Take a moment to register on the site, and give us your comments on the recipes.  We look forward to serving you!

Stephanie & the CopyKat Crew