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THE NIBBLE’s Gourmet News & Views
Trends, Products & Items Of Note In The World Of Specialty Foods
This is the blog section of THE NIBBLE. Read all of our content on TheNibble.com,
the online magazine about gourmet and specialty food.
Archive for July, 2008
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July 24, 2008 at 8:00 am
· Filed under Meat & Poultry, Tip Of The Day
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| Most cookbooks advise using ground chuck for burgers, but many top chefs use brisket. It has a better proportion of fat and better flavored-meat. It’s a tough cut, so have it ground twice. When shaping patties, do it lightly—squeezing them into a solid mound makes them tougher and less juicy. Click here to read more burger tips from THE NIBBLE. |
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Make your burgers better by starting with
the right beef. |
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July 23, 2008 at 8:15 am
· Filed under Kitchenware, Salts/Seasonings, Tip Of The Day
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These hand-blown glass salt shakers
come from GazelleGlass.com. |
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From 18th-century to ultra-modern, sugar bowls, creamers, salt-and-pepper shakers and other accessories add personality to any table. Why not collect them and use a different one each month? They don’t have to match your dishes, they don’t take up much storage space and you can find them at yard sales. In fact, look for old-fashioned salt cellars for the newly-popular artisan salts. (Click here to see the many different kinds of artisan salt.) Let the kids make the monthly selection, and give them the job of switching over the sugar, salt and pepper on the first day of the month. |
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July 22, 2008 at 8:00 am
· Filed under Fruits & Nuts, Tip Of The Day
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| So many things taste better with a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime…but you don’t always have a fresh one at hand. Plan ahead by freezing fresh wedges. When you need a squeeze, microwave a wedge for 20 seconds. The juice will taste as fresh as the day you put the citrus in the freezer. Squeeze the juice on salads or seafood, in your margarita, anywhere. While the frozen wedge doesn’t look as pretty as fresh, the juice tastes great. Freezing wedges is also a trick for saving unused portions of lemons and limes that might otherwise deteriorate in the refrigerator. To read about what we do with fruit purées here at THE NIBBLE, click here. |
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Keeping lemon wedges on hand allows
making the classic gin and tonic to be
even easier. Try it with Q Tonic Water. |
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July 21, 2008 at 10:48 am
· Filed under Cheese/Yogurt/Dairy, Contest, Cookies/Cake/Pastry, Desserts & Ice Cream
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Who doesn’t love cheesecake? Whether
New York- or Philadelphia-style, flavored
or traditional, this is one dessert that
takes the cake! |
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Like cheesecake? Enter this week’s Gourmet Giveaway: The lucky winner of our cheesecake prize will get to enjoy a 10-inch deluxe cheesecake sampler. You’ll get two slices each of eight flavors: Amaretto, Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Fudge, New York Style, Blueberry Swirl, Raspberry Swirl, Cappuccino and White Chocolate Pistachio. Retail value $52.99. This and other gourmet gifts are available at DelightfulDeliveries.com. Enter the Gourmet Giveaway by answering a few fun trivia questions about cheesecake; you don’t have to answer correctly to win. Find more of our favorite gourmet cakes in the Cake & Pastries Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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July 21, 2008 at 10:39 am
· Filed under Fruits & Nuts, Gluten-Free, NutriNibbles/Organic, Snacks, Top Pick Of The Week
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What could be better than a healthy sweet treat that tastes great? That’s why we were buzzing when we recently discovered the Bumble Bar, handcrafted in microbatches in Spokane, Washington (just 154 bars are made per batch).
While not made with honey, they evoke a gourmet version of those sesame-honey candies—but they’re soft and pose no harm to dental work. They’re flat bars, the size of a chocolate bar, and you can devour one whole or break off a piece at a time. The sesame seeds and flax seeds provide much more than texture, flavor, lots of fiber and heart-healthy linolenic acid and omega-3s;* they require a lot of chewing, so the snack lasts longer. And, in the summer heat, the bars don’t melt like chocolate or go gooey like caramel.
While Bumble Bars call themselves energy bars, they don’t stack up nutritionally the way a Balance Bar, Clif Bar or Lara Bar will. Those bars have twice the protein and half the fat, and are formulated for energy. We’d call it a confection—a healthy candy. In fact, the world’s first candies were seeds, nuts and fruits mixed with honey. Bumble Bars are descendants of those simple, whole foods. They’re gluten-free, wheat- and dairy-free and vegan, made of certified organic good stuff and sweetened with brown rice syrup and evaporated cane juice. And it’s not easy to tire of them, given 12 delicious flavors: Awesome Apricot, Chai With Almonds, Chocolate Cherry, Chocolate Crisp, Chunky Cherry, Lushus Lemon, Original (peanut and cinnamon), Original with Almond, Original With Cashew, Original With Hazelnut, Original With Mixed Nuts and Tasty Tropical. |
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These sesame and flax seed bars are
our new favorite guilt-free candy. Chunky
Cherry and Original With Almonds,
above, are two of the 12 flavors. |
Read the buzz in the full review, and stock up for camp, car trips, the gym—and healthy workplace snacks instead of what’s in the lobby concession or that infernal candy machine. |
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July 21, 2008 at 10:28 am
· Filed under Cheese/Yogurt/Dairy, Fruits & Nuts, Kid Foods, Tip Of The Day
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 Looking for fun cheeses with which to
make your kids’ kabobs? Look no
further than Rogue Creamery’s flavored
cheese curds. |
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Make cheese and fruit kabobs for the kids by using thin pretzel sticks instead of toothpicks or skewers. Use an ice pick to pierce a hole in cheese cubes and fruit (melon balls, grapes, berries) and alternate cheese and fruit on the pretzel stick. Show older kids how to assemble them: It makes a fun project as well as a tempting alternative to less nutritious snacks. Serve the kabobs plain or with with a fat-free yogurt dip. Greek yogurt is less tangy and more like sour cream. You can mix chopped pretzels into it along with healthy sesame and flax seed; the dip goes with both the cheese and the sweet fruit. Grown-ups can enjoy these kabobs, too. See our favorite kids’ foods on TheNibble.com. |
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July 17, 2008 at 10:10 am
· Filed under Cookies/Cake/Pastry, Desserts & Ice Cream, Tip Of The Day
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| Insert “character cookies” into the tops of cupcakes to create an innovative and memorable dessert or snack. Animal cookies, people cookies, flowers and fanciful shapes turn cupcakes into edible sculptures that delight children and adults alike. You also can use the cookies on top of cakes or around the sides of a cake to create an entire story. Click here to see other ideas in THE NIBBLE’s article, “Things To Do With Cookies.” |
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These animal-topped treats come from
The Cupcake Fairy. |
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July 16, 2008 at 11:16 am
· Filed under Tip Of The Day, Vegetables
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Try this recipe for mâche, also known
as field salad, with rose petals, poppy
seed, strawberries and kumquats. |
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Think of making your salad course a daily “special.” Instead of a simple, dressed green salad, look for something different to add to it each day: strips of chicken or beef from a prior day’s roast, marinated grilled vegetables, gherkins or pickled vegetables, a slice of duck prosciutto, chopped dried fruit, fresh fruit (apples, pears, citrus segments), cubed or shredded cheese, cubed leftover potatoes. Think international themes; for example, bean sprouts or water chestnuts marinated in a sesame vinaigrette. You don’t need to look far for inspiration: It’s probably already in your refrigerator and cabinets. Keep your family guessing as to what the next day’s “salad surprise” will be. Find more interesting salad recipes on TheNibble.com. |
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July 16, 2008 at 11:04 am
· Filed under Bread, Crackers, Muffins, Cookies/Cake/Pastry, NutriNibbles/Organic, Top Pick Of The Week
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More than 18 months ago, we were invited to a party in San Francisco to celebrate the anniversary of one of our favorite cheese makers, Cowgirl Creamery. Many great American cheese makers brought their best cheeses to the celebration. But what we remembered most following that assembly of fine fromage were the enchanting, irresistible flatbreads from Rustic Bakery, a small artisan enterprise which had started up only nine months earlier. It was by no means ready to set up an e-commerce operation, but we kept calling regularly with high hopes. We simply had to have a steady supply of such great flatbreads to accentuate cheese, soup, salad or as a great munchie with a glass of wine or beer.
Each time we called to find out when we could order online, the product line had expanded. One time it was panforte crostini, the next time, cookies. Finally, the e-commerce engine turned over, and now those of us not within driving distance of Larkspur, California (across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco) can experience these unleavened luxuries and their classy cookie cousins. While the company name, Rustic Bakery, honors a 50-year-old heritage, there’s nothing rustic about these sophisticated stunners. |
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The Hazelnut & Sultana Panforte Crostini
is just one of the remarkable artisan
products from greater San Francisco flatbread and cookie baker, Rustic
Bakery. |
Oh, how lucky the Larkspur locals are, to be able to have their morning java with these glories, or to take afternoon tea with a plate of such special cookies. The rest of us can order up a bunch, put some flowers on the table and imagine we’re on vacation at a spectacular inn. Each bite makes you proud to be part of the American artisan food movement. For surely, our role, to purchase and savor such fine products, is as important as the role of the artisan who crafts them. The products are made with organic ingredients. Read the full review on TheNibble.com, as we describe each delicious bite. |
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July 14, 2008 at 4:09 pm
· Filed under Contest, Meat & Poultry
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Man bites dog: 150 million of them on July Fourth alone! |
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Like sausage? Enter this week’s Gourmet Giveaway: The lucky winner of our hot dog prize will get to enjoy two large gourmet sausages, Mild Summer Sausage and Spicy Summer Sausage, with matching mustards: Sweet ‘n’ Hot Mustard, Hickory Mustard and Hot Mustard, from Dan The Sausageman. The sausages are 20 ounces each, and can be enjoyed as snacks, on pizza, in pasta, old-style with sauerkraut or as part of a mixed grill. Retail value $30.99. This and other sausage gifts are available at DelightfulDeliveries.com. Enter the Gourmet Giveaway by answering a few fun trivia questions about hot dogs; you don’t have to answer correctly to win. Find more of our favorite gourmet sausages in the Sausages & Charcuterie Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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