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 Recipes
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June 27, 2008 at 9:29 am
· Filed under Beverages, Cocktails & Spirits, Entertaining, Recipes
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The ever-popular Margarita seems to be a classic with every generation. |
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Modern mixology, like today’s fine cuisine, has become a throw-down to see who can create the most complex, fascinating drinks with new flavors and nifty ingredients. In the process of entertaining cocktail customers with new wow factors, many of the classic drinks have fallen by the wayside. While some, like the Martini, are enjoying a renaissance (including hundreds of variations on the theme that make the drink unrecognizable, as in the Plum Sakétini), when was the last time anyone ordered a Tom Collins—even though a bar glass is named after it?
This summer, treat guests to a retro cocktail hour. Here are cocktail recipes for some oldies but goodies that haven’t been seen for a while, along with some classics that seem to be high on the list of the cocktail menu top hits:
-Bellini Recipe
-Grand Margarita Recipe
-Mojito Recipe
-Scotch & Ginger Recipe
-Tom Collins Recipe |
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April 22, 2008 at 8:30 am
· Filed under Cocktails & Spirits, Recipes
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Think green, and celebrate Earth Day with two cocktail recipes from 360 Vodka. |
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Celebrate Earth Day, April 22nd, by drinking tap water. Refill a bottle and carry it around with you. And especially purchase a Better Drinking Water Filter Bottle—a biodegradable corn resin bottle with a built-in filter top that is good for purifying 90 bottles of tap water.
Now you’ve earned a cocktail, so celebrate with 360 Vodka, a “green” company that produces its vodka to be as earth-friendly as possible, in both manufacture and distribution. The company has created two special Earth Day cocktails, Greentini and Planetary Punch. Enjoy the recipes and learn more about the vodka.
Find more cocktail recipes in the Cocktails & Mixers Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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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 13, 2008 at 11:20 am
· Filed under Cookies/Cake/Pastry, Recipes, Tip Of The Day, St. Patrick's Day
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Make a white chocolate frosting with Irish cream liqueur. Photo courtesy of Equinox Maple Flakes. |
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Celebrate the 17th with Irish Cream Icing. You can bake or buy brownies or a loaf cake and add this tasty homemade topping. Take 1/3 cup Irish cream liqueur (such as Bailey’s) and 8 ounces of top-quality white chocolate. Buy a good chocolate bar instead of baking chips, which can be vegetable oil instead of real chocolate. You can buy Green & Black’s, one of our favorites (it’s organic, too), readily available at Whole Foods Markets and elsewhere. In a small pan, bring the liqueur to a slow boil; then remove from the heat and whisk in the chopped white chocolate until it’s completely melted and the icing is smooth. Refrigerate until it becomes thick enough to spread, stirring occasionally. Spread the icing over the brownies or cake. Keep refrigerated until 30 minutes before serving.
- Make Irish Coffee to go with your dessert.
- Find more cake recipes in the Gourmet Cakes Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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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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March 11, 2008 at 8:41 am
· Filed under Recipes, Pasta, St. Patrick's Day
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| You don’t have to hunt for green bagels for St. Patrick’s Day breakfast. Start your day with a nutritious green breakfast by adding pesto sauce to the eggs beaten for scrambled eggs, omelets, a frittata or quiche. Mix in one teaspoon per egg. Decorate the plate with fresh basil or spinach leaves, and you’ll start the day in a holiday mood. You’d think pesto would be a pretty simple proposition: basil (or other green, like spinach or arugula), oil (usually olive, sometimes walnut or other oil), Parmesan and nuts (usually pine, nuts, but walnut pestos and other recipes are pretty fine). Yet, we tasted more than 100 pesto sauces from around the world and found only six brands to recommend to you, two of which were from recent Top Pick Of The Week sauce maker, Sauces ‘n Love. Read about our favorite pestos, the history of pesto and a recipe for making great pesto at home. When you realize how easy it is, you’ll become a pesto-making maverick. |
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Use pesto sauce to make green eggs on St. Patrick’s Day. Ham is optional with your green eggs, but you can enter our Gourmet Giveaway to win a great one this week. Photo by Val Lyashov | SXC. |
| Read about more of our favorite sauces in the Pasta & Sauces Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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March 10, 2008 at 7:22 am
· Filed under Recipes, Oil/Vinegar/Dressing, Tip Of The Day
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Add a splash of raspberry flavor to your vinaigrette. |
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Looking to add a little pizazz to your everyday salad dressing? Try a raspberry vinaigrette—two parts raspberry vinegar, three parts olive oil. The sweet raspberry fruit shines through, as does its ruby color. While raspberry vinegars are available for as little as $3.50 a bottle—they can be made less expensively with raspberry flavoring—we splurge on the opulent French vinegar of J. Leblanc, made from the juice of fresh raspberries blended into white wine vinegar, then aged in oak barrels. It also makes a splendid addition to fish sauces, marinades and luncheon salads—especially with sliced duck or chicken. It adds magic when you substitute it for cider vinegar, for example, in cole slaw, potato salad and gazpacho. It can be drizzled on fruit, cheese, bread, ice cream, cheesecake…in fact, you can mix a spoonful into apple juice, iced tea, lemonade and other beverages. It also makes a great gift for your favorite cook or foodie. If you can’t find the brand locally, it is sold on Amazon. Find more of our favorite vinegars in the Oiis & Vinegars Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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March 8, 2008 at 6:26 pm
· Filed under Fish/Seafood/Caviar, Books, Recipes, Daily Food Holidays
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The whitest, biggest chunks of crab—known as Jumbo Lump crabmeat—are also the priciest. |
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How can you celebrate National Crabmeat Day and still have change to spare? Here’s the secret: Those pretty puffs of lump white crabmeat on the buffet are up to three times the price of the darker body crabmeat. But the darker meat is actually tastier. If you’re mixing the crab into a salad for sandwiches (think crab rolls, like lobster rolls, or serve it on brioche, as a crabmeat BLT) or to stuff eggs or omelet, save money—and enjoy crab more often—by using dark crabmeat.
Also celebrate National Crabmeat Day by:
- Learning about the different types of crab and crabmeat, and what you should look for when you purchase canned crab.
- Read our review of Miller’s Select, our favorite brand of crabmeat (it’s shelf-stable too, no refrigeration required).
- Make one of these crabmeat recipes.
- Buy this nifty little crab cookbook: Crab: Buying, Cooking, Cracking, by Andrea Froncillo and Jennifer Jeffrey. |
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March 7, 2008 at 6:06 pm
· Filed under Cookies/Cake/Pastry, Recipes, Tip Of The Day, St. Patrick's Day
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Bite me, I’m Irish. |
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You’ve got plenty of time to find a shamrock cookie cutter before the St. Patrick’s Day festivities begin. Then, bake up a batch of delicious butter cookies. (If you don’t have a shamrock cookie cutter, you can always make regular shapes with green décor.) Use your own favorite recipe, or try this recipe from Land O’ Lakes. Unless you need to use margarine for dietary reasons, always use butter—fresh butter, not a bar that’s been sitting in the refrigerator for a month, picking up flavors from other foods. You can also use the shamrock cookie cutter to make shamrock toasts for hors d’oeuvres, shamrock pancakes and even vegetable cut-outs. |
If you don’t want to bake, treat yourself to these hand-decorated cookies from Eleni’s, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week (read our review).
- See more of our favorite cookies in the Cookies & Brownies Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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March 6, 2008 at 8:36 am
· Filed under Cocktails & Spirits, Recipes, St. Patrick's Day
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Skip the green beer, have a green Grey Goose cocktail, the “Dublin Delight.” |
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Don’t color the beer green at your St. Patrick’s Day party. Let the beer drinkers enjoy fine craft beer in the golden color it should be. Those who want a vodka cocktail can go green with a Dublin Delight from Grey Goose Vodka. It was specially created to abet drinkin ‘o the green by master mixologist, Nick Mautone, author of Raising the Bar (“Better Drinks, Better Entertaining”). Starting with Grey Goose Vodka’s popular Le Citron lemon-flavored vodka, the ingredients include kiwi, simple syrup, a sprig of mint, a small piece of vanilla pod and a splash of club soda.
It’s not as simple as pouring tonic water into the gin, but once you make up a pitcher, it’s smooth sailing—and you have something memorable for your guests.
- Read the full Dublin Delight recipe.
- Find more seasonal cocktails in the Cocktails Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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