How to Eat Light

What is the difference between eating light and eating heavy? Light eating is more than just a nutritional buzzword as it will allow you to eat foods in their most digestible order. Lighter foods, such as fruits, vegetables, and so on, will be digested before the heavier foods, such as carbs, proteins, and starches, and the lighter foods will not be trapped. There is a science to light eating that is easily adaptable for any person regardless of age, gender, or current weight.

Breakfast is the first meal of the day, and by far the most important. Besides providing us with energy throughout the entire day, breakfast foods are good sources of nutrients such as calcium, iron, fiber, and Vitamin B. The essential nutrients gained by eating a light and healthy breakfast will help you on the track to a healthier lifestyle. Eating a heavy breakfast, for example, can achieve quite the opposite. You may think that a heavy breakfast will keep you full for a longer period of time, but research has disproven this, and the calories you gain from a heavy breakfast will do more for your waistline than for your health. A great routine for the morning is a smoothie or shake as the fruits, vegetables, etc. can be easily digested in liquid form.

Lunch should be the first meal of the day that could be a little heavier, but still not heavy like dinner. Salad can be called the ideal light eating lunch as fruits and vegetables are easy on your digestive system and provide a large number of health benefits. Dinner, like lunch, can be a little heavier, but if you are trying to eat a light diet, keeping away from heavy carbohydrates will be your best bet. The light eating philosophy allows your body to detoxify naturally, digest better, and provide you with more energy. La Bottega of Farmingdale offers numerous menu items that can be classified as a light meal.

Spring Salads

Spring is starting once again, and it is a good time to look at some recipes for this bright, warm season. Spring salads are filled with leafy greens, such as lettuces and spinaches, and there is a lot of different things you can add to a spring salad to add flavor and zest.

La Bottega of Farmingdale offers a wide array of spring salads, with an example being a market salad with some poached chicken, and involves using endive, a leafy green vegetable, watermelon radishes, and a lemon citronette dressing. The salad represents spring in its colorful, fresh look, and it is very flavorful as well. Another spring salad recipe is for the Asparagus and Pea salad filled with peas and raw asparagus, made from a buttermilk dressing with chives, parsley and tarragon.

The cucumber and mint salad is another good spring salad to try, especially with a side of toasted pitas. The salad is filled with a light vinaigrette dressing, cucumber mint, and green beans. The toasted pitas are coated with a light olive oil as well as some garlic to make an interesting change up from the standard croutons with most salads.

You might want to try this next spring salad if you are a fan of shrimp. This salad uses marinated shrimp and adds lemon and fresh basil for a great, outdoor meal. Spring is also known for fruits as well as flowers and greenery, so why combine the two for a great taste? Spinach and strawberry salads can be topped with whatever dressing you would prefer, and they are good for you too! The lemon juice and peas is also a popular combination, which is another example of fruit pairing with a green vegetable.

One final salad to get you in the mood for spring is the butter lettuce radish and avocado salad. You can also throw on some mustard dressing for a flavorful salad. It is a light salad as well, only 152 calories.

Salads are good for you, but that doesn't mean they have to be plain and ordinary. Adding fruits and different seasonings can really add flavors you have never tried, so try to throw different fruits or vegetables in for a good taste. Spring has sprung, and so has fresh salad season!

Spring Fruits and Vegetables

Goodbye snow, goodbye ice, goodbye heavy winter clothes and hell-ooo beautiful weather! I think it is safe to say that we are all pretty excited for the spring season. Spring resembles life: flowers bloom, animals mate, and beautiful color fills our atmosphere. Another wonderful aspect of the spring season is the variety of food.

For those of you who can use a bit of a spring cleaner-upper, why not start cleaning up bad eating habits? Let’s face it: the majority of us probably failed at keeping our New Year's resolutions of being “fit and healthy.” So why not take advantage of this new opportunity to make things right? Speaking of fit and healthy, keep in mind that summer will soon be around the corner and substituting unhealthy sweets with spring filled fruits is an easy fix. Strawberries are first on the list. Strawberries are available all year round in some areas but they suffer less damage in transit and are more likely to be fresher in quality during the springtime. These wonderful berries are very nutritional as they provide 3.5 grams of fiber and attribute to your vitamin C dosage.

All of the following fruits do wonders to the body so them all together and have yourself a dream fruit salad:

• Apricots
• Avocados
• Blueberries
• Grapefruit
• Kiwi
• Pineapple

The hard part about eating healthier is that vegetables are not the first foods to be considered due to the daily diet of most Americans consisting of meats and fried foods. Asparagus is a good spring vegetable due to its great nutritional value as they are low in fat, high in fiber, and provide a good source of vitamin B and C as well as iron. Fresh peas are also a great spring vegetable because they too are low in fat, high in fiber, and provide a great source of plant protein.

The following vegetables are also great in the spring:

• Artichoke
• Arugula
• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Carrots

There are a number of fruits and vegetables that we should really take advantage of this spring season and it can also be a great adventure picking them yourself at a farm. Choose your food wisely as a lot of the best tasting foods contain the least amounts of grease and oil.

March Madness Catering

March is finally here, so get your brackets ready! A sure sign of Spring for all basketball fans is the start of March Madness. The NCAA March Madness Tournament kicks off March 15th, and that’s enough of a reason to celebrate. Get the gang together for an epic March Madness party and you can place your bets on La Bottega of Farmingdale to provide you the perfect catering everyone will enjoy. All you have to do is pick up the phone, give us a call, and let the madness ensue!

The last thing you want to do at your own party is spend time in the kitchen preparing food, cleaning, cooking, and missing out on the game. We have catering packages that will suit the tastes of all your guests. When choosing food for an event, guests usually expect to be munching down on delicious foods they can eat with their hands that doesn’t make too much of a mess. We offer spiedini, which are like delicious mini-meals on a skewer. Basketball fans can enjoy chicken, steak, or ship spiedini skewers even when they are standing cheering on their team.

You can’t go wrong with our famous paninis as they are known to be party pleasers. We let you choose from 6 varieties of many panini options so that all your guests will be sure to fill up on something they’ll love. The paninis are cut in fours so guests will be able to try a little of everything. Our panini options include vegetarian, steak, chicken, cured meats, roasted turkey, pork, or shrimp, all prepared fresh and served hot!

At La Bottega of Farmingdale, we can work with you to help coordinate your March Madness party and make recommendations to ensure your party is a hit. You can check out our full catering menu to help you decide what works best for your event. Whoever you root for, win or lose, we are sure your guests will go home happy when you choose La Bottega of Farmingdale for your March Madness party.

Seasonal Fruits and Vegetables

No, don’t buy strawberries yet—it’s not strawberry season! My mom says this to me during the winter months, though I can’t help it . . . strawberries are my favorite fruit! What does she mean by “it’s not strawberry season”, anyway? It’s a fruit, they’re grown all year round! You would be surprised, however, at how significant of a role timing can play into the taste of your fruits and vegetables based on the season and your geographical location.

You may still be able to find your favorite fruit or vegetable even when it is not the proper season, although it may not be the flavor and taste in which we crave from them. When food is not in season in your local area, you may still find them in a local supermarket as they are often grown in a hothouse or shipped from different parts of the world. The downside is that the taste is not always as sweet or as ripe as you would like due to the long travel in their export or the artificial flavoring that is sometimes added in a hothouse as the crops are not able to grow in their natural setting outdoors.

Another thing to keep in mind when shopping for fruits and vegetables (and you may want to thank me later) is the cost and expenses that will affect your wallet. When it is not the typical season for, let’s use for example a watermelon, the prices shoot up as the availability for fruits such as these goes down.  

As peak season is important when shopping for fruits (as it affects both your money and your meals), you can always check and inquire at your local farmer’s market to uncover seasonal produce guides. It is important to keep an idea of what crops are in peak time and what are not, and both your wallet and taste buds will appreciate the extra effort!

Different Types of Sauces

Preparing a good meal typically means following a recipe, whether it’s from a cookbook or from memory. Sauces are an important step in cooking almost any meal. There are sauces for all different types of foods. The sauces main purpose is to enhance the dish it’s served with as it brings out more flavor. There are different bases for sauces, as some are wine based, stock, or cooked with thyme and pepper as well as butter. There are a few basic sauces many of us know and love:

• White sauces, usually served with pasta, contains milks and creams. There are white butter sauces, based in butter, vinegar, and shallots.
• Brown sauces are based on dark stocks like lamb and beef dishes.
• Vegetable sauces are from cooked or purèed vegetables.
• Vinaigrettes are usually served on salads, made up of oils, vinegars, and seasonings.
• Hollandaise is usually associated with eggs benedict, a common breakfast dish, and it is cooked with egg yolks and butter.
• Dessert sauces are typically made with fruits or chocolates and sugar. Their bases are usually from caramel, butterscotch, or nuts.

This list includes just some of the many sauces. You may hear chefs commonly refer to the Five Mother Sauces. One of them is the hollandaise sauce, but also included is bechamel, a white sauce made from milk and cream. Veloute is a white stock based sauce usually paired with a chicken dish but sometimes used with fish. Espagnole is a brown sauce traditionally with veal and beef. Of course, you cannot forget the common tomato sauce, made traditionally by reducing tomatoes over heat.

You must be able to pair the right sauces with the dishes. The most important element of any sauce is the ability to cling to the food and make the flavor pop. According to the Food52 Network, a roux, an emulsifier, and a reduction are the three techniques used to make any sauce thick and stable enough to smother whatever food it is poured on. A roux is just a fancy name for flour mixed with fat. When butter and flour are cooked with a liquid, the mixture thickens and becomes the reducer, becoming the base of the sauce.

There are so many great sauces out there. Some sauces have recipes you can follow along with or sauces you can make yourself by any spices you may want in your dish. Some sauces are rich and spicy and others are just tasty. If cooking is your hobby or you’re just beginning in the kitchen, knowing your sauces is a basic first step to making any meal.

The Different Types of Pasta

When you think of Italian food, pasta is usually the first thing to come to mind. Pasta has such a long history and is a staple today for Italian cuisine. It is estimated that Italians eat over 60 lbs of pasta per person, per year. Americans eat about 20 lbs per person. Pasta can be found in just about every restaurant these days, and whether you’re cooking a pasta dish or ordering one at a restaurant, you have to think about the specifics.

There are 7 common types of pasta that you can find almost anywhere:

1. Angel hair pasta is the thin and long kind of pasta that can easily be mistaken for spaghetti. Angel hair only needs about 6-7 minutes to cook. It is typically paired with light dishes with soupy or dairy-based sauces to top it off. The hollowness of the pasta makes it easy to absorb the sauces. Angel hair pasta and spaghetti probably aren’t the best choices to slurp down on a date.
2. Farfalle is more commonly known as the “bow-tie” pasta. It’s slightly pinched in the center with wide surfaces on the end. This pasta is usually eaten with richer sauces that are tomato based or creamy because it sticks to the surface better. Farfalle takes about 11 minutes to cook.
3. Fusilli is the spiral shaped, corkscrew looking pasta and is one of the most common ones you will see. The shape of the pasta is made by wrapping thin strips of pasta around long skewers and then cutting them into multiple pieces making the individual pasta. The shape makes the cook time a little longer than the others, around 14 minutes.
4. Penne, the cylinder shaped pasta, takes long to cook and is usually paired with heavier, chunkier sauces. Penne is a common household pasta along with ravioli and macaroni.
5. Ravioli is the square shaped sheets of dough and can be filled with a variation of cheeses, lobster, or meat. This pasta is so rich that it typically doesn’t use much sauce.
6. Macaroni is the “elbow” shaped one that kids typically love to eat in their mac and cheese.
7. Spaghetti is an American favorite and probably one of the most Americanized of the Italian pasta dishes. It is usually paired with oils and sauces that have a creamy substance. It is served soft at all times, making it easy to slurp.

Now that you’re informed on pasta, it’s best to know what pasta does for you. Many people cut  carbs out of their diets when they want to lose weight. However, pasta can be a healthy option when the basic ingredients are swapped with nutritive ones. Pasta can be healthy depending on how it is both made and served. It’s dependent on what you pair the pasta with and what ingredients you cook it with.

The better you know your pasta, the better you'll be able to prepare them for yourself and the more knowledgeable you'll be when you order a dish.