Restaurant Booths & Eco-Friendly Restaurants

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Are you looking for ways to go green don’t have the money for initial capital costs? Here is some restaurant advice for you!

Having a green restaurant makes sense for the perception of your paying customers, but it can actually be quite taxing on your budget in its initial stages. Consumers love to see companies that are putting in the effort to go green and so you will certainly gain customers just from making the effort to create a more eco-friendly environment. However, when a business owner decides to make this conversion it can be quite overwhelming and it can often involve heavy initial outlays of capital which will require you to save money in other areas.

An example of an initial cost that can eventually save you money, but can be quite costly to bankroll is switching to energy efficient appliances. There are a number of benefits to making the switch to energy efficient appliances. Not only will you save the environment but you will also save money in the long run.

However buying all new appliances is obviously a very big investment.

The same goes for creating eco-friendly bathrooms – buying new toilets that use less water, as well as automatic faucets and hand dryers is a big initial investment.

So how can you save money when opening or remodeling your restaurant to free up some cash for environmental improvements? Save money on design by buying affordable restaurant booths.

Restaurant booths, which sell for as low as $175 on online restaurant furniture websites, have a number of revenue increasing and cost reducing benefits that will save money that you can eventually put into greening your restaurant.

Restaurant booths allow you to increase your restaurant’s capacity by seating more people. As any restaurateur knows, being able to fit as many people in the restaurant as possible is a massive part of success.

Restaurant booths can also help you attract customers that might otherwise not frequent your establishment. Families with children appreciate the comfort and privacy that a booth provides.

Booths are easily cleaned, requiring less staff to maintain them, which is an additional source of savings.

So, while every restaurateur has the admirable desire to run an eco-friendly restaurant, not everyone can afford to make the necessary initial investment to bring that about. By saving money and increasing revenues with restaurant booths, businesses can help get their dream of a green restaurant off the ground.

Danielle Archer is part of a team that will gladly share with all restaurateurs (new and established) the accumulated knowledge of years in the restaurant furniture  business by providing them with tips and advice in all aspects of running a successful establishment.

Potato Goodness

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Description: Did you know that each potato is a storehouse of nutrition? One medium sized potato has 110 calories and has a dose of C vitamin which is half of what you need; potassium count is more than in a banana. And who better to tell us that than the United States Potato Board ambassador Katie Boyle? With spring around the corner, she has even come up with innovative recipes to keep us wanting for more. Did we even know there are seven different types of potatoes? Reds and russets, whites and yellows and not to mention the purples, petites and fingerlings. So we can actually make a new recipe every day, add not only nutrition and but also colour to our food.

Katie shares two of her new recipes for salads that can be used this spring and summer. Her ‘Potato with Kale’ salad’ has abundant potassium and vitamin C in each serving. It comes with Walnuts, Greek yogurt and gorgonzola and tastes really nice.

Katie’s potato salad for spring is also a unique combination of red potatoes, arugula, and baby peas that have been grilled. Top that with a dash of lemon juice, mix with Dijon mustard and don’t forget to sprinkle it with freshly chopped mint leaves.

Do you want to more about these healthy recipes and goodness of potato from Katie? Visit USPB’s Facebook page on 16th April, Tuesday at 5pm PST when Katie comes on live.
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Coffee Cravings

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If you are someone who just can’t get your day off on the right foot without a great cup of coffee then you need to know about Kona single serve K-Cup® coffee – it’s the best. You may have seen a single serve or on demand coffee maker in a fancy gourmet cookware store or in a professional office and they likely seemed way too sophisticated and expensive for home use but that’s simply not the case. When you average out the cost of Tassimo® or similar brand coffee discs the price per cup for a cup of truly great gourmet coffee is mere pennies.

The beauty of an on demand coffee maker is that you brew only what you want at the exact moment you need it so there is no waste – it’s far more economical to brew only what you will consume than it is to toss a pot of leftover or burned coffee that has sat on the warmer too long. With an on demand coffee maker there is no warmer to worry about – it brews directly into your cup or mug so there is no pot to clean or carafe to break.

With a single serve coffee maker the coffee is always fresh – you don’t need to buy a pound and work your way through it before it gets stale because each cup of coffee is brewed from an individually sealed insert, pod or packet which is opened only at the moment of brewing. This is especially handy when one person drinks regular coffee and another prefers a flavored coffee or decaffeinated coffee – everyone can get what they want with no waste and no leftover coffee.

Most brands of on demand coffee makers offer a large portfolio of coffee blends roasts and flavors so you have plenty to choose from.

Growing Cucumbers In A Greenhouse

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Cucumbers have long been known for being an extremely healthy food to eat. Although some people confusingly believe they are vegetables, but they contain seeds and fall into the same fruit group as tomatoes and avocados and you can grow them in your own glass greenhouses.

Across the UK, they are available in your local supermarket every single day of the year. The majority of people that put a simple salad together always include cucumber with tomato, lettuce and perhaps onions. However, while you may have seen cucumber used as a beauty trick, mostly to people who like to lessen the puffiness around their eyes, you can search the Internet and find hundreds of healthy reasons why you should always keep a cucumber available – in your vegetable tray.

The benefits of greenhouse grown cucumbers

If you were to eat a full cup of sliced cucumbers, you would only have consumed around 20 calories. Two of the biggest dangers to health are consuming the wrong cholesterol and too much sodium. Luckily, cucumbers don’t contain either of these and are completely fat-free.

Cucumbers are easy to grow in your greenhouse. It doesn’t really matter what size or shape they become. They should be harvested when they’re young when they’re sweet and tender. Fortunately, for children, you can eat their seeds quite easily.

Most people eat cucumbers raw and it is common to see them as a vegetable dip, or should we say a fruit dip, often with high calorie counted sauces, instantly negating the value of eating good food that is suitable for growing in a greenhouse.

Cucumbers are packed with nutrients, even though they are mostly made of water and are great as a cool and rehydrating snack. The peel on the outside, which is softer the most fruits, contains vitamin A and vitamin C. If you’ve organically grown your cucumbers in your own greenhouse, your children will be exceptionally pleased to take them to school as a great snack.

Growing your own cucumbers

Growing cucumbers in your own glass greenhouses gives you the opportunity to have organic produce available 12 months of the year. During the summer months, between May and June, you can sow cucumbers outside, directly into your garden, but you need a greenhouse to be able to grow cucumbers for the rest of the year.

When you grow cucumbers in glass greenhouses you have to make sure that the small sap sucking insect, whitefly, is kept away from your cucumbers. Environmentally friendly pesticides will keep the whitefly away from your greenhouse.

You will need to learn about the cucumber mosaic virus as it slows down the growth of your plants and can discolour your cucumbers, even if they do manage to appear. Along with mildew, which is a white fungal growth that you might see on or around your cucumber, you’ll need to use the best and safest of pesticides to ensure good growth for your food.

Although cucumbers originally came from India, they spread around the world over 400 years ago. They’re good for your heart and good for your skin, so it’s great news that they taste so good when they are organically growing in a greenhouse down the bottom of your garden.

Cleaning Your Barbecue

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It’s strange that people treat their barbecue so differently to any stovetop or gas cooker in their main kitchen. If people did treat their barbecues like their kitchen cooking unit, the BBQs would be kept much cleaner and would wear out far less often.

When you are cooking in your kitchen, you immediately wipe up any excess mess and try to keep the kitchen looking like a showroom unit. Even these minor cleans keep the cooker looking spotless, but you will also have to complete a major clean in your kitchen from time to time. Why is it, therefore, that your grill rarely gets clean and when it does, it’s a very quick clean that doesn’t remove the residue of food and grime from your BBQs?

Before you jump up and down and say that you always clean your charcoal barbecue after every use, do you mean that the grate is cleaned after every use? As you will have found out, if you don’t clean the grate properly, food will stick to your grill and this will cause you severe aggravation as you try to prise stakes and fish from your BBQs. Fortunately, there are a lot of good products available for cleaning your grate including a full range of stiff wire brushes. If you clean the grate just after you finish cooking, rather than just before you are going to begin the cooking process, it will be much easier to clean food and grease particles from your BBQs. Some grates will require oil from a paper towel occasionally to keep them in excellent condition and also to make sure that the metal does begin to rust.

Do you use a charcoal barbecue?

Instead of cleaning out your charcoal barbecue after every use, many people only dump the ashes safely. Your charcoal barbecue will last you much longer if you clean the grate, removing all of the ashes and any cooked on foods. If you don’t take this action, your next barbecue may provide an excess of smoke and some bad flavouring to your food.

Your charcoal barbecue can be expertly cleaned with hot soapy water. If you scrape away any of the surface during the cleaning process, you should prevent rust by using a can of grill safe paint from your hardware store to bring your unit back to order.

Cleaning gas barbecues

As with charcoal barbecues, you need to clean your gas barbecues after every use and despite wishing you could run down the yellow brick road after a great BBQ, a gas barbecue won’t clean itself.

A gas barbecue usually has more surfaces for you to clean because they are more helpful in providing places to hold food warm and position your tools and plates while you’re waiting for the food to cook. All of these areas can have food and oil dripped on to them so you need to be especially careful to maintain your gas barbecue properly so that it will last longer and less people are likely to get food poisoning from one of your BBQs.

You will need to pay particular attention to keep the burners of your gas barbecue, completely clear and clean. If you don’t keep the burners in pristine condition, your cooking unit will be less effective and you may end up having to replace parts of your gas barbecue, when simple cleaning would have saved you the expense.

It’s fait to say that most people would rather do the cooking than the cleaning, but if you are to maintain a good working BBQ unit, then you must apply yourself equally to both parts of the process.

Stay in with the kids and cook together

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Nothing says ‘Autumn’ quite like a steaming bowl of homemade apple crumble, unless it’s bored kids staring out of the window, watching the rain wash fallen leaves down the street. What better way to keep them entertained than to scoop them into a nice warm kitchen to make this classic autumnal dessert? Tart Bramley apples contrast beautifully with sugar, spices and the crunchy topping to create a filling treat, all the better when topped off with lashings of hot custard or Anchor cream.

The kitchen is a great place for kids to indulge their imagination and explore the world. Let them imagine the fabulous journeys taken by each of the ingredients – lemon juice from the shores of the Mediterranean, sugar from the sultry Caribbean, and spices from secret islands in the distant Orient. A well stocked kitchen is a treasure trove of engrossing stories from all over the world.

Sneak in some enjoyable lessons as they weigh out the flour and sugar, then pretend not to see as they lick the caster sugar off their fingers. Long, twirling ribbons of peel make an engaging game of peeling the Bramley apples. Those little fingers will just love working rich Anchor butter through the flour to make the crumbly topping, and the spicy scents of ginger and cinnamon can carry anyone away on a tropical fantasy. It won’t be long before the children are totally absorbed, and the damp autumn weather is forgotten.

Kitchen time with the kids is time well spent. We all know deep down that shared experiences mean so much more to our youngsters than hours whiled away before the television or video games. It’s a time to talk, to play together, and to pass on valuable skills that will stand them in good stead for a lifetime. At the end of it all there is a sense of pride when the crumble is served and the cream or custard is poured, and they can say ‘We made that’.

Always remember whilst you are teaching your kids how to cook, you’re not just baking a dessert, you’re baking a family.

Pillsbury Celebrate More

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Great things indeed come in small packages. What seems to be a simple thing can actually turn your party into something that you really love to do over and over again. You cannot help but fall in love with the new Pillsbury Home-Baked Desserts. And with all the possibilities to celebrate and party this season, today could well be the best time to bring out all the fun and cheers with the new Pillsbury seasonal varieties and baking kits as we share happy moments with families and friends.

This is definitely the best time to take a brief break from our daily grind and throw a party for your loved ones and friends as your home is filled with the familiar scent of autumn. And you don’t really have to spend much of your time or exert too much effort. You can easily get things going by having the new Pillsbury Supreme Collection Cake Mixes as party items. It is an exciting combination of the traditional Bundt pan and classic flavors. These premium cake mixes from Pillsbury come in 3 different varieties and each is loaded with mouthwatering filling. These include the Apple Spice, which comes with sweet apple filling; Red Velvet, which comes with cream cheese filling; and Fudge Truffle, which comes with rich fudge filling. The suggested retail price of the Pillsbury Supreme Collection Cake Mixes is pegged at $2.99.

And for the coming Halloween Season, Pillsbury is your perfect companion. Go great guns by throwing a party that your family and friends will truly love. Include in your party items the new Pillsbury Funfetti Halloween Brownie Pop Kit. The Brownie Pop kit from Pillsbury comes with candy bits and pop sticks, cocoa confectionary wagers and brownie mix. The suggested retail price of the party item is pegged at $3.49.

So, when you are in a partying mood and you want it to be sweet and fun, then there is no better way to go than by having the new Pillsbury® seasonal varieties and baking kits.