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 Vegetables
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June 20, 2008 at 8:26 am
· Filed under Vegetables, Top Pick Of The Week, Condiments
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With Rick’s Picks, you can pick a peck (or at least a 15-ounce jar) of pickled red peppers, asparagus, beets, green beans, green tomatoes, okra and, of course, that most familiar of pickled vegetables, the cucumber (including garlic dills, bread-and-butter and other pickles).
It was love at first bite with Rick’s Picks. We usually leave our specialty food store with arms aching, because we’re carrying so many jars. Rick’s, a beautiful artisan product, is no cheap pick(le), but it’s worth every nickel. Every sandwich served becomes more gourmet with a garnish of Rick’s Picks. A barbecue becomes memorable with a Rick’s Picks tasting bar. Some of the vegetables make cocktail garnishes extraordinaire. And as gifts for those who love their pickles, a sampler package—or even better, the Pickle Of The Month Club—will make you a hero. |
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We first wrote about Rick’s Picks two years ago. But Rick Fields continues to innovate (Smokra, pickled smoked okra, is a slam dunk—even for people who say they don’t like okra). With barbecue season, Father’s Day and summer guesting upon us, it’s time to revisit these gourmet pickles. There are four gourmet cucumber pickles and seven pickled vegetables for appetizers, sides, snacks and garnishes. You’ll never think of a pickle the same way again. In fact, you may even be inspired to try pickling your own! Read the full review on TheNibble.com. |
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June 17, 2008 at 9:48 am
· Filed under Vegetables, Cheese/Yogurt/Dairy, Tip Of The Day
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| Fruits are frequently served with cheese, but vegetables are also a traditional accompaniment. Italians serve goat cheeses with radishes and pecorino romano with fava beans. Tomatoes in season are always delicious. Marinated vegetables—always part of a good antipasto—are a refreshing complement. Experiment to see what pairings you like best. Click here to learn more about fine cheese at THE NIBBLE. |
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Cheese and vegetables make a delicious
combination, these goat cheeses from
Harley Farms already have herbs and veggies mixed in. |
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June 3, 2008 at 9:16 am
· Filed under Vegetables, Cheese/Yogurt/Dairy, Tip Of The Day
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A lovely blue quail egg next to its larger cousin, the chicken egg. Learn about the different types of eggs at TheNibble.com.
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June 3rd is National Egg Day, and an opportunity to expand our horizons. Quail eggs are small and beautifully speckled in blue and brown. They make a spectacular first course or salad course, hard-boiled and nestled at the front of a lightly-dressed mesclun salad (set 3 eggs in a lettuce leaf “cup”). Check locally for quail eggs or search for them online. Boil the eggs for 5 minutes with a teaspoon of vinegar, and serve them warm or at room temperature in the shell. Provide ramekins of salt water so diners can simultaneously rinse and salt their eggs after they’ve peeled them. Snip some fresh herbs (chives, parsley, dill) into the salad, and you have an exciting dish that takes very little time to make. For more salad ideas, head over to THE NIBBLE’s Vegetables & Salad section. |
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June 2, 2008 at 3:59 pm
· Filed under Vegetables, Cheese/Yogurt/Dairy, Tip Of The Day
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| The most impressive courses can also be the simplest to make, a point that this easy dish proves. Starting with roasted or grilled red and orange bell peppers, alternate slices of fresh salted mozzarella, prosciutto and peppers to make a layered “Napoleon.” Top with whole basil leaves. You can make a short stack or, for a heartier course, make a tall stack and skewer with a long toothpick. Sprinkle the plate with shredded basil and extra virgin olive oil or a balsamic vinaigrette. In the summer, use delicious local tomatoes instead of peppers; when standard tomatoes aren’t in season, decorate the plate with a few yellow and orange grape tomatoes. Find more salad ideas for first courses at THE NIBBLE online magazine. And read up on all cheeses in THE NIBBLE’S Gourmet Cheese section. |
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This napoleon is made from Mozzarella Fresca, a Nibble Top Pick Of The Week. |
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May 30, 2008 at 8:35 am
· Filed under Vegetables, Oil/Vinegar/Dressing, Tip Of The Day
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 Make a sweet spring salad from antioxidant- and fiber-rich spinach.
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Here’s a variation on a spinach salad that’s especially spring-like: Take a bag (10 ounces) of baby spinach, 2 cups of sugar snap peas or pea pods and 2 cups of sliced strawberries. Cut half a medium red onion or a sweet Vidalia onion into thin slices. Add a 1/2 cup of sliced unsalted almonds, raw or toasted. Toss with a honey vinaigrette: 3 tablespoons of olive oil, 2 tablespoons of vinegar (balsamic, wine or cider) and 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon of honey, depending on how sweet you like it. If you have lavender honey, it’s a home run! Head over to THE NIBBLE’s Vegetables & Salad section for more ideas. And for additional dressing recipes and reviews, see our Oils, Vinegars & Salad Dressings section. |
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April 21, 2008 at 5:35 pm
· Filed under Vegetables, Tip Of The Day
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 Piquillo peppers add color and flavor to what would have been a plain lettuce salad. These are from El Navarrico and are available on Amazon.com. |
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Create a fusion dish by using Italian antipasto ingredients to dress up your salad course. Marinated tomatoes, roasted peppers or artichokes from a high-quality manufacturer like Divina are wonderful on their own, but are even more grand atop greens. You can use the oil marinade from quality jarred vegetables as your salad dressing and shave some Parmesan on top to finish your dish. Visit the Gourmet Vegetables Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine for more salad recipes. |
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January 26, 2008 at 5:38 am
· Filed under Vegetables, Kitchenware, Gourmet News
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 Save money by bringing your lunch to work. Bring it in style with this Built NY Lunch Tote.
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The Urban Vegan lists 25 money-saving kitchen tips for pure vegans. The article starts with the premise that veganism doesn’t have to be expensive, but you don’t have to be vegan to find the tips useful. Some will sound familiar: Pack your own lunch—you can save at least $2,000 after-tax dollars a year. Invest $19.99 in the chic, insulated tote at the left, and you are now cool instead of a brown-bagger. (Shown: The Built NY Lunch Tote, available in black, orange or silver, keeps food and drink separated. Made from the same material as a diver’s wetsuit, it insulates for up to 4 hours with no additional refrigeration necessary.) Some tips are earth-friendly (we do all of them at THE NIBBLE, including using cloth napkins instead of paper napkins and rinsing/reusing Ziplock-type bags). It’s a good list to review. One of our favorites: Borrow rather than buy cookbooks. |
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January 26, 2008 at 4:57 am
· Filed under Vegetables, Tip Of The Day
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 Don’t weep over me: Get goggles! |
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If your eyes water when you chop onions, the best kitchen gadget is a pair of swimmer’s goggles. They keep the sulfur enzymes away from your eyes like magic! To remove the smell of onions (or garlic) from your hands, squeeze lemon juice on them (or if you’ve squeezed lemon juice for a recipe, rub the squeezed pulp) and then rub your hands against stainless steel—your sink, faucet, a serving spoon. The “kitchen chemistry” works. While swimmer’s goggles may not qualify as kitchen gadgets, you can see some of our favorite traditional (and not-so-traditional) gadgets in the Kitchenware Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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January 23, 2008 at 8:43 am
· Filed under Vegetables, Fruits & Nuts, Daily Food Holidays
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| Rhubarb is a vegetable, not a fruit. The giveaway might be that it looks like red celery stalks with cabbage-like leafy tops (some can be dark green like spinach or kale). By the time it gets to market, the leaves have been cut off, and we only see the red stalks. Native to Asia, rhubarb has long been used in Chinese medicine. As anyone knows who has cooked rhubarb, it needs copious amounts of sugar to offset its natural bitterness; thus, its use as a food didn’t come into play until sugar became widely available in the 17th century. But since then, what a joy! Stewed rhubarb is a delight, as is a rhubarb or strawberry-rhubarb pie or crumble. We’ve made rhubarb ice cream too—terrific! The reason you don’t see more stewed rhubarb or pie is that it’s relatively laborious to work with the vegetable. It’s fibrous, so after you cook it, you need to process it through a Foley food mill. But we learned the joys of cooking rhubarb from our Nana, and assure you, it’s worth it. |
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 Rhubarb—it’s pretty, and after you add lots of sugar, it’s tasty. Photo courtesy of OurOhio.com. |
| We’re not certain why today is National Rhubarb Pie Day, since the vegetable isn’t harvested until April/May in the Northern Hemisphere; and Southern Hemisphere readers have missed the October/November harvest. So, enjoy a piece of seasonal fruit pie—apple or pumpkin, perhaps—and start perusing recipes in advance of pumpkin season. Plan to make a pie or crumble for your own Nana for Mother’s Day.
How can you tell the difference between a fruit and a vegetable? Fruits carry their seeds on the inside—think apples, bananas, melons, pears, and plums. The only exception is the strawberry. By the same token, the following “vegetables” are botanically fruits; we just think of them as vegetables because they are not sweet: avocados, eggplants, olives, squash, tomatoes and zucchini. (Avocados and olives are tree fruit, just like apples and oranges.) |
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January 15, 2008 at 9:42 am
· Filed under Vegetables, Top Pick Of The Week, Diet Nibbles
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| It is only January, yet we know that Mr. McGregor’s microgreens are going to be among the top 10 most exciting foods we’ll try this year. And, we’ll sample 3,000 to 5,000 specialty food products! What are microgreens? They are tiny, tiny vegetables, no more than 8 to 14 days old, that have just developed their cotyledon (first) leaves. They are far tinier than “baby greens.” Think of the first, threadlike shoot that rises when you plant a seed, and the first tiny leaves, barely a quarter-inch in diameter. You may have seen a few scattered on your plate or garnishing your food at fine restaurants. Microgreens are very tender and oh, what flavor! Both intense and delicate, visually captivating and sublime to eat, they are a gourmet experience. Yet, they are highly nutritious with scarcely a calorie. For people who already like greens, microgreens are the zenith. For people who do not care for salad or raw vegetables: If you don’t like these precious greens, we’ll rest our case. Use them in salads, main dishes, soups and as general garnishes. Read the full review in THE NIBBLE online magazine, and see more photos of these minute, exquisite vegetables. |
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A trio of tiny microgreens. At front, Red Amaranth. |
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