Pasta is a staple ingredient to most diets around the world. It's a very simple, very versatile item that can go into anything from main dishes to soups to desserts to snacks. It's a great provider of energy, and it's very easy to digest. However, these great points to it can make it easy to overdo it on pasta. The excess energy contributes to the obesity of America. But there are healthier options to help make this less of a problem. When I went on my big diet, one of my changes was switching from normal white pasta into whole wheat pasta.
Whole wheat pasta is healthier than white pasta for a couple reasons. The biggest one being the fact that the flour that the pasta maker uses isn't artificially bleached. The bleaching process to turn ground wheat flour into the white flour that most of us are very familiar with takes with it a lot of the minerals and vitamins that are in the wheat. Wheat pasta is also very high in fiber, which is an indigestible carbohydrate. This means that you have the mass in the pasta from the dietary fiber, but the calories are not available to use by your body, as it cannot break that part of the mass down. It's a great way to fill you up without putting on the excess weight.
One of the great things about wheat pasta is that it has quite a variety, maybe more so than eating white pasta. Different companies have provided different ways of making it. My personal favorite is Racconto's 8 grain pasta. In addition to the fiber it is packed with vitamins and minerals that just aren't there in white pasta. It also doesn't taste much different than it's bleached counterpart, so you can cook it right into your favorite dish and enjoy it just the same as you would have enjoyed your white pastas. A nice plate of 8 grain rigatoni, a light layer of tequila butter sauce, and some margarita shrimp and some simmered broccoli florets, and you have a healthy meal fit for a king. So next time you're in the pasta aisle, give it a try. Make it for the family, and don't tell them. I guarantee they go back for seconds, and don't even know the difference.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Restaurant Review - Ron's Place.
It's rare that there is a hometown bar that can attract people by reputation from sometimes a hundred miles away. But we, in Kenosha, have a little treasure like that. Ron's Place has been a staple for low key gatherings and dates for well over 40 years, providing excessive alcohol and incredible food, good lighting, and a fairly social, but private table setup. I've eaten at Ron's many MANY times, and I've been carried out of there more than once because their teas are delightfully strong. Given my experiences, I'd like to talk a little about the food, drinks and service.
Ron's Place is a bar, therefore, it's expected that they do have bar food. And they do have a wide assortment of it. However, the executive chef of the establishment wasn't satisfied to just have the same thing as every other college bar. You don't get a burger and fries at Ron's, you get a massive "5x5" cooked how you want it, with limitless variations like my personal favorite, the T-Hurst special (a 1/2 lb burger smothered in ham, cheese, and onions). The chicken can be served as a sandwich, or a knife and fork dinner, and grilled or fried. Several steak and seafood options; such as my personal favorite, the cheese stuffed shrimp dinner; along with a rarely used kid's section, make this small town bar's menu one to rival mid level dining establishments throughout the area. You can seriously walk in and have your meal be either fancy, or comfort food, or anything in between.
Now with a great selection of food like that, you need to have something to wash it down with, and being a bar, the first place we look is the liquor counter. Now the liquor is well stocked, various whiskeys, scotches, vodkas, schnapps, and tequilas, and other liquors, but the real stories are the beers and the teas. Ron's Place is best known, Chicagoland and Greater Milwaukee over, for its 44 different flavors of Long Island Iced Tea. The majority of its patrons are going there just for the teas. True they are a bit fruity, but they are packed full of enough liquor to warrant a strict 3 tea limit. Grape, berry, original, lime, and even one that tastes like a heavily spiked cherry coke are just some of the offerings. An old girlfriend asked me about the place once, from Miller Park area in Milwaukee, and if I could take her there (as much of a lightweight as she was, I regretted it later, but she enjoyed herself). They have promotions for drinking every different type of tea (The tour of teas) along with drinking just 50 of any type of tea you want (the custom tour), doing either will win you a T-shirt. Along with this, they have a Tour of beers promotion, encouraging patrons to come back again and again and try all of the 28 types of beer they have available.
Now, to top off the teas and all the great food, the service is absolutely second-to-none. The Olive Garden may treat you like family, but Ron's Place treats you like their best friend. On slower nights, the bartenders and cooks come out and talk to you, get to know your name, even come up with nicknames for you (one cook always calls me "Ed, Edd and Eddy"). There is always enough staff to ensure that you will never be waiting very long to get anything. They tend to overstaff rather than understaff, but I would do that too if I knew how busy that place has the possibility of being, even on a Monday night. Ask them anything, they will gladly bring it to you, even a big to go cup of pickles.
All in all, this is one of the better establishments I've ever eaten in. I would go there over and over again. If I moved away, I'd keep coming back just to go there again. It is a wonderful cornerstone to the fair city of Kenosha, and I hope it continues to be in business for years and years to come.
Ron's Place is a bar, therefore, it's expected that they do have bar food. And they do have a wide assortment of it. However, the executive chef of the establishment wasn't satisfied to just have the same thing as every other college bar. You don't get a burger and fries at Ron's, you get a massive "5x5" cooked how you want it, with limitless variations like my personal favorite, the T-Hurst special (a 1/2 lb burger smothered in ham, cheese, and onions). The chicken can be served as a sandwich, or a knife and fork dinner, and grilled or fried. Several steak and seafood options; such as my personal favorite, the cheese stuffed shrimp dinner; along with a rarely used kid's section, make this small town bar's menu one to rival mid level dining establishments throughout the area. You can seriously walk in and have your meal be either fancy, or comfort food, or anything in between.
Now with a great selection of food like that, you need to have something to wash it down with, and being a bar, the first place we look is the liquor counter. Now the liquor is well stocked, various whiskeys, scotches, vodkas, schnapps, and tequilas, and other liquors, but the real stories are the beers and the teas. Ron's Place is best known, Chicagoland and Greater Milwaukee over, for its 44 different flavors of Long Island Iced Tea. The majority of its patrons are going there just for the teas. True they are a bit fruity, but they are packed full of enough liquor to warrant a strict 3 tea limit. Grape, berry, original, lime, and even one that tastes like a heavily spiked cherry coke are just some of the offerings. An old girlfriend asked me about the place once, from Miller Park area in Milwaukee, and if I could take her there (as much of a lightweight as she was, I regretted it later, but she enjoyed herself). They have promotions for drinking every different type of tea (The tour of teas) along with drinking just 50 of any type of tea you want (the custom tour), doing either will win you a T-shirt. Along with this, they have a Tour of beers promotion, encouraging patrons to come back again and again and try all of the 28 types of beer they have available.
Now, to top off the teas and all the great food, the service is absolutely second-to-none. The Olive Garden may treat you like family, but Ron's Place treats you like their best friend. On slower nights, the bartenders and cooks come out and talk to you, get to know your name, even come up with nicknames for you (one cook always calls me "Ed, Edd and Eddy"). There is always enough staff to ensure that you will never be waiting very long to get anything. They tend to overstaff rather than understaff, but I would do that too if I knew how busy that place has the possibility of being, even on a Monday night. Ask them anything, they will gladly bring it to you, even a big to go cup of pickles.
All in all, this is one of the better establishments I've ever eaten in. I would go there over and over again. If I moved away, I'd keep coming back just to go there again. It is a wonderful cornerstone to the fair city of Kenosha, and I hope it continues to be in business for years and years to come.
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