Cooking Famous Restaurant Recipes at Home

Eating out is growing increasingly expensive. Gas alone costs more than double what it cost only a year or so ago. Because shipping costs are growing, overall food prices are growing along with them.

Because biofuels are straining our food supplies, staples were rising in price even before the cost of fuel became a problem. The end: everything involving going out, from driving to paying for the dinner, is costing you more.But you can't just give up your evenings out. Or your chili cheese fries. Or the Awesome Blossom, one of the best of Chili's restaurant recipes.

What can you do?

Simple: prepare famous restaurant recipes at home in your own kitchen.

You can find famous restaurant recipes all over the Internet. Most are put together by amateurs who want to cook their own recipes at home, and just decided to share their favorites with the world. Others are a little more serious: groups who share what they think their favorite dishes are, and work together to refine them.

Just like anything online, you can't just trust the first two or three sources you find for a recipe; in fact, you'll find a bewildering variety of recipes online using surprisingly different ingredients for the same famous restaurant recipes.

Fortunately, the job of sorting through these for just the right recipe is also done for you by a few sites, where recipes are reviewed and critiqued for accuracy, quality, and ease of preparation.

Once you've found the right famous restaurant recipes, you can do one more thing: experiment with ingredient substitutions to make them more healthful or appropriate to your diet.

If you need to cut out the fat, you can do that; if you need to eliminate sodium, using all-fresh ingredients instead of canned or frozen, then using sea salt or salt alternatives can really help. When you're done, you may wind up with a dish even better than the one at your favorite restaurant.

Better Than An Evening Out:

An evening out is more than just a stop at your favorite restaurant. Besides famous restaurant recipes, you need atmosphere and ambiance. This is really up to you. Do you want a romantic candlelit dinner, or are you more a night-on-the-deck person? Beer and pretzels or champagne and cashmere?

Make your night out special, even though you're having it at home, by using the good dishes, by eating picnic-style, or by watching old movies on the new plasma television you'll be able to afford once you've cut out that restaurant expense from your budget.

Making famous restaurant recipes at home can do even more for you than this. They make perfect pot-luck additions to family get-togethers or office parties. If you make trays of appetizers and freeze them, they can be healthful after-school treats for the kids. And the tricks you learn while preparing famous restaurant recipes may enhance your own tried-and-true home recipes, turning you into your family's favorite chef.