Recipes Archives - Page 5 of 6

Impress Your Guests with Upgraded and Upscale Pasta Dishes

Update Your Pasta Repertoire and Watch it Get Devoured

New Ways to Serve Good, Old Pasta

When it comes to casual catered buffets, there is probably nothing as versatile and, therefore, as ubiquitous, as pasta. In so many shapes and forms, pasta is the chameleon of dishes, changing its shape and size to fit any occasion. Now, pasta is getting a long-needed facelift, thanks to restaurants and chefs who are raising the bar for pasta around the world. With a nip here and a tuck there, you can hone the classics and invent new pasta dishes that will impress and satisfy even the most discerning client.

Who Doesn’t Love Pasta?

Everyone loves pasta. According to the International Pasta Organization, dried pasta is the most prominent pasta variety sold in the United States and sales reach about $3.3 billion annually. The chilled and fresh pasta retail value is projected to reach $340 million this year, while in 2016 there were 1.16 billion units of pasta sold in U.S. supermarkets. That’s a lot of pasta!

There are many reasons why pasta is so popular. First reason is that it is simply so good, taste-wise and even health-wise. Although carbohydrates in general, and pasta in particular, have gotten a bad rap lately, nutritionists agree that pasta is a healthy food and that complex carbohydrates are essential for any diet, especially when paired with other healthy foods, such as greens, vegetables, olive oil, etc. As the Pasta Fits website says, pasta is a “perfect foundation for healthy, nutritious, and satisfying meals. It is generally eaten with nutrient-dense food partners, such as fiber-filled vegetables and beans, heart healthy fish and monounsaturated oils, antioxidant-rich tomato sauce, and protein-packed cheeses, poultry, and lean meats.”

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Get Cooking with Korean Cuisine: An Up and Coming Catering Trend

Korean Cuisine

Wedged between mega-countries China and Japan, petite Korea still manages to retain its own culture, philosophy, and, most importantly for our purposes, cuisine. Korean food is distinctive and delicious and for these reasons and more, it is catching on as a hot culinary trend. So, to get prepared for requests for Korean cuisine, read on and learn all about what makes it special and how you can offer it to your customers.

The Where and What of Korea

The Korean Peninsula is a peninsula that extends south from China into the ocean alongside Japan, and it is surrounded by the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea. Until World War II, Korea was a single country; after the Second World War, however, Korea was divided in half to form the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (known as North Korea) and the Democratic Republic of Korea (known as South Korea). South Korea has fertile plains suitable for agriculture in its southern region, and the country can grow enough rice there to support its population.

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Create Exciting and Stimulating Events Using Multi-Hued Foods

Use Colorful Foods to Highlight Your Catered Events

Catering Clients Crave Color

For many reasons, color is a caterer’s best friend. Colorful décor and multi-hued accessories can create a festive atmosphere that boosts enthusiasm levels even before the food arrives. Color energizes the senses and puts people in the right mood for a party. When the food comes out and it is colorful and attractive, well, you’ve captured the attention and triggered the excitement of everyone present and, after all, that’s the goal of every successful caterer.

Colorful Food Takes on New Meaning

As recently as a few years ago, rainbow food was all about health and nutrition; only recently, did “rainbows” and “unicorns” begin to mean Instagram-friendly foods that look great through the camera’s lens. Regardless of why you’re serving colorful foods, however, it looks fabulous and is attractive and appetite-whetting.

Healthy-eating advocates often tell people to “eat the rainbow.” It’s a simple way of reminding people that a variety of fruits and vegetables in one’s daily diet will afford all the vitamins and minerals people need. The concept of eating the rainbow was particularly popular a few years ago – but the legitimacy of the idea hasn’t waned since then – when dietitians, doctors, and other health advisors used the phrase to get people—especially children—to incorporate more fruits and vegetables into their diets. It’s a nice catchphrase, but behind the Madison Avenue advertising lies the science that explains why a colorful variety of fruits and vegetables can be both pleasing to the eye and good for your health.

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Learn How to Make Pickles and Find Out Why They’re Good for Business

Homemade Pickles: Ride the Latest Catering Trend

Make Your Own Pickles

A little while ago we discussed how your catering business can benefit if you use made-from-scratch condiments. Your customers will be impressed by the originality of your approach and they will appreciate the homemade flavor of the food that you produce in your very own kitchen. Now that you’ve perfected your ketchup and mayonnaise, it’s time to move on to another perennial crowd-pleaser: pickles. Making these delicious treats and serving them fresh and crispy at your next event, will put you on the map as the Pickle Maven of the catering world.

Pickles Are Hot

According to the National Restaurant Association’s “What’s Hot” survey for 2018, homemade pickles are one of the most popular food trends right now. Crunchy and sour, pickled cucumbers – or, simply, pickles – can be eaten on their own or used in sandwiches and salads to add a fabulous tang. Street food in general, and pickles in particular, are having a moment, and the green wonders are being reinvented in all colors, sizes, textures, and flavors.

But, you may ask, why make my own pickles? The real question is, why not? When produce is in season – at peak flavor and in top-quality, inexpensive abundance – it makes sense to grab it while you can and make it last. By making homemade pickles, not only are you taking advantage of the monetary savings, you’re showing clients that you can take a trend to a higher level, mixing the pickle craze with the make-your-own-everything trend that is apparently here to stay.

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How Vegetable Shakes and Smoothie Bowls Can Put Your Business on the Map

Serve Vegetable-Forward Drinks to Impress Your Catering Clientele

Cater With Vegetable-Based Drinks

An important part of any catered event is quenching your guests’ thirst. Nowadays it’s not enough to place a few bottles of sparkling water or Coke on each table; a beverage station – serving hot perked coffee, freshly brewed tea, and blended drinks that are created on the spot – is a feature that no event can do without. Smoothies and shakes have long been part of a caterer’s beverage repertoire, as they allow guests to customize their beverages with ingredients of their choosing. Now, however, with the arrival of warmer months, along with the increase in healthier menu offerings, it’s time to liven up your beverage menu by introducing your guests to fresh, bright, vegetable-based smoothies.

Eating and Drinking Healthy is Here to Stay

There are basically two options for including a beverage bar at the events that you cater: you can handle all the drink-making yourself (with staff that you hire and train), or you can outsource to a company that specializes in serving beverages at catered events. Either way, the drinks that you serve at your upcoming events will have to conform to the current trends: healthy, sustainable, and seasonal. When it comes to drinks, this means that your clients will be looking for freshly squeezed juices and blended smoothies made from organic, local, and seasonal fruits and vegetables. Many people are trying to incorporate more vegetables in their diets, and juicing is a great way to capture a lot of vitamins and minerals from raw produce that might otherwise be lost during cooking.

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Use Edible Flowers, One of the Hottest Trends of the Year

Stay on Top of the Latest Trends by Using Edible Flowers

How to Use Edible Flowers

Cooking with edible flowers is once again a trend. After going out of style for many years, cooking and garnishing with flowers is back in vogue and on the buffet tables at catered events everywhere. As a savvy caterer, it’s time for you to embrace the edible flower trend to add a touch of elegance to all your affairs.

The Use of Edible Flowers Goes Way Back

In “The Edible Flower Guide: Cooking with Flowers from the Garden,” the Gardening Channel offers advice and tips on using edible flowers safely and beautifully, and lists the many edible varieties, including those we’ll mention below. As the site explains, edible flowers are experiencing a renaissance, of sorts. They’re popping up everywhere – on top of wedding cakes, in cocktails and even in soups and salads. And not just the usual and well-known edibles, like lavender or nasturtium; in addition to the tried-and-true favorites, other flowers, like pansies, tulips, violets, and orchids are getting the culinary treatment.

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Understand Veganism to Cater a Fabulous Plant-Based Event

Keep Vegan Guests in Mind

As a caterer, you’ve probably found yourself having to prepare food for all types of clients, including vegetarians, glucose- and lactose-intolerant customers, those with nut allergies, and clients who adhere to sugar-free or low-fat diets. Veganism is just one more fad in a long line of trends for which you must bend over backwards to please your customers. Special requests are part of the business, and to make it in the dog-eat-dog catering arena you need to be flexible and know how to accede – with grace and generosity – to a range of requirements (even those that lead to extra work). However, when you do go that extra mile, it’s worth it, as your reputation as an accommodating and professional caterer will precede you.

What is Veganism?

Veganism isn’t a new concept, but it has been receiving more and more attention lately. The term “vegan” was coined in 1944 by a group of vegetarians who then formed the Vegan Society. In addition to not eating meat (like vegetarians), vegans choose not to consume dairy, eggs or any other products of animal origin. According to the Vegan Society website, “Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose.” The term vegan was created by combining the first and last letters of the word vegetarian.

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How to Cater for Clients Who Want Gut-Friendly Foods

Tips for Catering and Creating a Gut-Friendly Menu

How to Create a Gut-Friendly Catering Menu

For years, we thought of bacteria as organisms that are bad for us, even deadly. However, research has shown that the human body is loaded with “good bacteria,” which help us to digest food and contribute to our well-being. Serving “gut-friendly foods,” – foods that contain friendly bacteria that aid digestion and help to prevent certain diseases – is a big catering trend right now. Add these foods to your menu and your customers will appreciate the effort you make to help keep them healthy while they enjoy your tasty food.

What Are Gut Bacteria?

The gut is simply another word for our gastrointestinal system, which starts in the mouth and includes the esophagus, stomach, pancreas, liver, gallbladder, small intestine, colon, and rectum. The gut is essential in sustaining and protecting the health of our bodies, starting with the intake and absorption of nutrients. The digestive process is the foundation for our body’s ability to function and stay healthy.

Roughly 300 to 500 different kinds of bacteria live inside our gut, along with other tiny organisms, like viruses and fungi, which form the body’s “microbiome.” Every person has a unique microbiome, which is influenced by genes, as well as diet and lifestyle. Our gut bacteria line our digestive system and affect everything from our immune system and metabolism, to our moods and temperament. Gut bacteria help to break down the foods we eat and aid in the digestion of the nutrients that support our body’s functions, such as energy production, skin health, and mental health.

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Entice Your Guests with Rotisserie or Fried Chicken

Chicken Still Rules the Catering Roost

While the latest and greatest trends must always be at the top of your catering menu, and your finger must remain firmly on the pulse of what trend-happy customers are looking for, one can never overlook the trend that seems to never go out of style: getting back to basics. Every few years the pendulum swings back around and basics like chicken – the All-American favorite – come back to top the list of trends to be on the lookout for. Right now, basic chicken recipes such as rotisserie and fried chicken are returning to the forefront of the catering world, so you can’t afford to overlook what has always been right in front of your eyes.

Chicken Remains Popular

The chicken industry in the United States is one of the most successful sectors in agriculture, with no signs of slowing down. Americans consume more than 80 pounds of chicken per person annually. Today’s chickens are healthy and wholesome – and affordable for just about everyone.
There are many varieties of chicken, including free range chicken, organic chicken, and conventional chicken; the difference between them is based on the basis of their breeding. While free-range chicken is allowed to roam freely in the pasture; conventional chicken (at the heart of ongoing controversy), is kept in cages and not allowed to move freely. Conventional chicken is also injected with hormones to fasten its growth and to make it unnaturally big. These are considerations when choosing chickens to feed a crowd (though your customers may dictate what kinds of chicken to use).

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How Bison Has Become a Big Catering Trend

Impress Your Guests: Serve Bison

Catered Events Benefit from Bison

Keeping up with food trends is crucial to offering customers the right menu. These days, “right” means being the healthiest and most environmentally friendly, as well as the most adventurous and interesting. Bison fulfills all the criteria of the trend-savvy consumer, and its place atop catering lists of “hot” items seems to be growing steadily.

History of Bison

Not everyone knows the difference between buffalo and bison; they’re not the same thing and the animals are not interchangeable. The American Bison is native to North and South America and Europe, while most buffalo species reside in Africa and Asia. They’re related, but not identical; in fact, North American bison have a beard, while their Asian relatives don’t. According to the National Park Service, when early explorers came to North America, they thought the animals resembled old world buffalo, and so they called them that, contributing to the general confusion.

During the 20th century, bison came very close to extinction. When the aforementioned early explorers arrived in North America in the late 1500s, there may have been as many as 60 million bison on the continent. In the 1880s, there were approximately 40 million in North America; but by the 1900s, hunting had reduced the population to a mere 1,000. The bison that exist today were bred from just a few individual bison, and they are thriving due to smart breeding efforts and restoration of their native grazing land. The animals now number roughly 400,000 and the bison business is booming.

Bison: a healthier meat

Bison: The Healthier Meat

The American Heart Association includes bison as a lean meat option in their Diet and Lifestyle Recommendations. The greatest difference between beef and bison is their respective health benefits; they’re both delicious, but bison meat has the edge when it comes to health and nutrients. Like beef, bison is an excellent source of iron, zinc and certain B vitamins, including vitamin B12 and niacin. However, bison is lower in calories. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) a 3-ounce burger of ground grass-fed bison contains 152 calories and 7 grams of fat, versus a patty that contains even the leanest beef, which has 184 calories and 10 grams of fat. Grass-fed bison contain less saturated fat than beef and is lower in cholesterol.

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