THE NIBBLE Gourmet News & Views
Trends, Products & Items Of Note In The World Of Specialty Foods
Read all of our content on TheNibble.com, the online magazine about specialty food.
Archive for Breakfast
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April 18, 2008 at 3:46 pm
· Filed under Cheese/Yogurt/Dairy, Recipes, Tip Of The Day, Breakfast
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 If you don’t have time to make scallion cream cheese, do the next best thing: Snip chives into a small dish so that guests can sprinkle them on top of the cream cheese. It takes two minutes to wash and snip the chives. |
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When we serve flavored cream cheeses at brunch, the scallion cream cheese is the first to disappear. But commercial brands are gummy and specialty store fresh-made is pricey. Here’s our trick: Buy plain cream cheese, preferably organic. Using electric beaters on slow, blend 8 ounces of cream cheese with 2 tablespoons of sour cream (you can add more for a more fluid spread). Add 2 tablespoons of chopped scallions, or more to taste. That’s it! We also love olive cream cheese: Purée roasted peppers and, instead of the sour cream, blend 2 tablespoons or more of purée to taste. Add chopped green olives stuffed with pimento. Strawberries, bananas, guava, papaya, mango and pineapple (canned) are great blend-ins for sweet spreads. Read about more of our favorite dips and spreads in the Salsas, Dips & Spreads Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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March 12, 2008 at 7:29 am
· Filed under Top Pick Of The Week, Bread, Crackers, Muffins, Gifts, Breakfast
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Can’t you taste the goodness of Callie’s Country Ham Biscuits? The Cheese and Cinnamon are also stunning. |
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She catered Reese Witherspoon’s and Ryan Philippe’s wedding, and other catering clients have been clamoring for her country ham-stuffed biscuits for years. She couldn’t hand over the secret recipe, of course, so Charleston, South Carolina caterer Callie White did the next best thing: She charged her daughter with opening up a division to sell the bodacious biscuits online. Now, there’s no need for you to imagine what super Southern biscuits taste like. Buttermilk, cheese, cinnamon and the country ham biscuits that started it all will come to you. Get yourself a variety pack for Easter dinner or breakfast. Send some to Mom for Mother’s Day. Each biscuit is handmade with just a bowl and no other equipment (save for the oven, of course). Callie says that the secret to making a great biscuit is to not over-mix the dough. Each batch is mixed by hand, and the expert biscuit makers know by the feel when the dough is ready. It’s art, it’s science, it’s delicious! Read the full review. Visit more of our favorite breads and biscuits in the Gourmet Bread Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
| And here’s our Question Of The Week (you’ll find a new one each week on TheNibble.com home page—we usually don’t post them here): Why do the British refer to cookies and crackers as biscuits? It’s because the word biscuit comes from the Latin bis coctum, which means “twice cooked.” This is manifested in biscotti, the hard Italian cookies which are baked twice. Americans get “cookie” from the Dutch word, “koekje,” which means “little cake.” Both terms arrived in America in the 1600s, with their respective groups of Colonists. According to The Encyclopedia of American American Food and Drink, the first American usage of “biscuit” as a soft bread was in 1818, in the Journal of Travels in the United States of North America, and in Lower Canada, by John Palmer.By 1828 Webster’s Dictionary defined a biscuit as “a composition of flour and butter, made and baked in private families.” These small, puffy leavened breads were called soda biscuits or baking-soda biscuits, to differentiate them from the unleavened cracker type of biscuit. These bread-biscuit recipes are ubiquitous in 19th-century cookbooks. In addition to serving up plenty of soda biscuits, Southerners also developed the beaten biscuit, first mentioned in print in 1853. In 1930, General Mills introduced Bisquick, the first packaged biscuit mix. And the rest, as they say, is history. Pass the butter, please. |
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March 11, 2008 at 3:17 pm
· Filed under Recipes, Breakfast, Daily Food Holidays
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| Who thought this one up, you might ask? Why not Blackberry Waffles Day, or Milk Chocolate Chip Waffles Day? We’re guessing that Oatmeal-Nut Waffles Day is the work of nutritionists at the Whole Grain Council or some other group supporting oats—and they’re not wrong. We need three portions of whole grains daily, and oatmeal waffles are a good start. As for the nuts, while they are high in calories and fat, they contain the good, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats (omega-3s), which have all been shown to lower LDL cholesterol. Waffles are a great way to limit portions (unlike, say, eating an entire bowl of mixed nuts). Almonds, hazelnuts, peanuts, pecans, some pine nuts, pistachios and walnuts are approved by the FDA, since they contain less than 4g of saturated fats per 50g. Walnuts are your best bet—they are more heart-healthy than olive oil and have bone-healthy alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), an essential omega-3 fatty acid). But if you must have pecan waffles, we understand. Here’s a recipe: |
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You can serve your waffles with Equinox Maple Flakes, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week. |
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup quick-cooking rolled oats (oatmeal)
- 1/2 cup coarsely-chopped nuts
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs, slightly beaten
- 1-1/2 cups whole milk
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
Preparation
1. In large mixing bowl, combine the flour, oats, nuts, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.
2. In small mixing bowl, mix the eggs, milk, butter and brown sugar. Add this to the flour mixture, stirring until blended.
3. Pour the batter onto grids a preheated, lightly greased waffle iron. Close the lid quickly, and do not open during baking.
4. Use a fork to remove the finished waffle. Top with syrup or fresh fruit and/or yogurt.
Learn more about waffles in the Cereals, Pancakes & Waffles Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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February 29, 2008 at 9:37 pm
· Filed under Meat & Poultry, Recipes, Tip Of The Day, Breakfast
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| Winter days beg for hearty breakfasts and brunches, and this tasty bacon recipe is sure-to-please. Put strips of bacon on a baking sheet. Strip leaves from one sprig of rosemary per half pound of bacon and sprinkle them over the meat. Add fresh-cracked pepper to taste and roast at 400°F until crisp, about 10 minutes. Or, you can start with Nueske’s delicious pepper bacon. Either will make your eggs or BLT sing an exciting new tune.- Read about more of our favorite pork products in THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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You’ll love your homemade pepper bacon, but treat yourself to some from a top producer, too. |
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February 23, 2008 at 9:40 pm
· Filed under Gourmet News, NutriNibbles, Breakfast
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When we first saw Batter Blaster, we reacted viscerally: We don’t like things in aerosol cans. And the thought of pancake batter spraying out of one evoked images of aerosol cheese. But, don’t judge a product by its cover: This pancake mix is USDA-certified organic, which means that everything in that can is better than all natural. The main ingredients are filtered water, organic wheat flour, organic cane sugar, organic whole egg solids, organic soybean powder and sea salt. The environmentally-conscious will be pleased to know that Batter Blaster is powered by the more ozone layer-friendly carbon dioxide, not the nitrous oxide propellant that can be found in most aerosol canisters. You can point the nozzle to create any shape pancake you wish: your initials, flowers, squiggles.
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 Pancakes shoot from the nozzle of Batter Blaster. |
| Beyond breakfast, you can make mini pancake canapés with goat cheese, smoked salmon and fresh dill, or crème fraîche and caviar. An 18-ounce can, good for about 28 four-inch pancakes, retails for $4.99 to $5.99 (one poster to the website claims 12 pancakes). Thirty-two ounces of powdered pancake mix is less than half that. But Batter Blaster is no muss, no fuss and lots of fun. Because it is a refrigerated product, there are currently no mail orders, and it is only available on the West Coast and in Meijer Stores in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio. The company anticipates national distribution by July 2008, so get your nozzle finger ready. In the interim, read about our favorite pancakes and waffles in THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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January 30, 2008 at 8:12 am
· Filed under Bread, Crackers, Muffins, Breakfast, Daily Food Holidays
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Is there a person reading this who does not enjoy a buttery croissant? (Alas, not all are made with butter…but avoid buying croissants at inexpensive delis, and eagerly seek out new bakeries to see what they have to offer.) Our only complaint is that the flaky puff pastry that is so delightful in the mouth invariably ends up all over our place setting and our clothing. We admire people who can eat one neatly. A good croissant already contains so much butter that it needs no more embellishment. If you get one from a top baker who uses the best butter, enjoying each bite without the interference of additional butter or jam is, in our opinion, the way to go.
Making croissants by hand is very labor-intensive. Much of what is available today is factory-made, pre-formed and frozen, delivered to the bakery, food store or restaurant and “baked on our premises.” In the 1970s, the croissant evolved into a fast food, filled with everything from broccoli to ham and cheese (and in many cases, lowering the quality of the puff pastry itself). |
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Hold the butter: A truly fine, fresh croissant is buttery enough. |
| There are several stories about the invention of the croissant, but all appear to be legends. According to the Oxford Companion To Food, no recipe for what we know as the croissant appears before the early 20th century. It thus seems highly unlikely, for example, that the croissant was invented in Vienna in 1583 to celebrate the defeat of the Turkish siege of the city. Bakers, who were up in the wee hours making the city’s bread, are said to have heard the enemy tunneling under the city and were able to warn the army, thus saving Vienna from siege. In honor of the victory, the bakers created the croissant, the shape taken from the crescent emblem on the Turkish flag. (Eat this!) Such a heroic story; you will find it just about everywhere you look for “history of the croissant.” But one of the ways that food historians try to determine the truth is by looking at old recipe books. There are enough cookbooks from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries to deprive bakers of their most famous moment in history, alas. |
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January 28, 2008 at 10:57 am
· Filed under Breakfast, Daily Food Holidays
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| While we never turn down a plate of pancakes, this is another one of those holidays where we must question the wisdom: Why have Blueberry Pancake Day when blueberries are out of season? Who wants to make pancakes with highly expensive, not very sweet, fresh blueberries, or with tart frozen ones? The best solution, we think, is to sprinkle tasty dried blueberries onto your pancakes. We also recommend the following diversions: |
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Why schedule Blueberry Pancake Day when blueberries are out of season? |
- THE NIBBLE’s Pancake Glossary, with dozens of different types of pancakes you’ve probably never heard of.
- An understanding of the grades of maple syrup.
- A review of Cherrybrook Kitchen’s allergen-free pancake mix.
- Robert Lambert’s Gourmet Syrups for pancakes (and many other uses)—no maple here, but you might enjoy Bergamot or Kaffir Lime.
- The amazing Blender Bottle, perfect for mixing pancake batter without a whisk, egg beater or electric mixer (campers take note). |
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January 21, 2008 at 12:06 pm
· Filed under Breakfast
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Make breakfast brighter with the Polka Dot Ceramics Collection, available now at SurLaTable.com, $31.50 for four pieces as shown (the feathered chickens are $9.95 and $19.95). |
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We received our weekly marketing email from Sur La Table today. If only we had room for all of the wonderful merchandise they dangle in front of us! As New York City apartment dwellers, we live by a goods accounting principle called SOSO—Something In, Something Out. Otherwise, we’d be sharing our bed and bathtub with boxes of shoes, woks and ten books we’ll never get to read. Don’t we wish we had room for this gay, polka dot breakfast set: a plate, bowl, mug and individual teapot for $31.50. Instead, we’ll have to content ourselves with the pancakes, as we do have room for white flour, buckwheat flour, regular cornmeal and blue corn, plus genuine maple syrup and some of Robert Lambert’s exotic fruit syrups (Golden Date, White Ginger, Grapefruit, Texas Lemon, Kaffir Lime, Bergamot Orange—who said Maple had exclusive claims on pancakes?). |
- Pancake lovers should check out our Pancake & Waffle Glossary to discover dozens of different types of pancakes from A (aebleskiver) to T (tlacoyos)…plus W for waffle, of course.
- You can learn about the 14 different types of syrup (not flavors, but types), plus other sugars and sweeteners, in our Glossary Of Sugars, Syrups & Sweeteners. |
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