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 3, 2008 at 9:16 am
· Filed under Cheese/Yogurt/Dairy, Tip Of The Day, Vegetables
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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 Cheese/Yogurt/Dairy, Tip Of The Day, Vegetables
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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 Oil/Vinegar/Dressing, Tip Of The Day, Vegetables
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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 Tip Of The Day, Vegetables
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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 Gourmet News, Kitchenware, Vegetables
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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 Tip Of The Day, Vegetables
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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 Daily Food Holidays, Fruits & Nuts, Vegetables
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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 Diet Nibbles, Top Pick Of The Week, Vegetables
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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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January 6, 2008 at 10:23 am
· Filed under Diet Nibbles, Vegetables
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The best tomatoes you can buy—so good you can eat them from the can. |
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The San Marzano is an heirloom variety of plum tomato, originally planted in the town of the same name at the base of Mount Vesuvius, near Naples. The volcanic soil and sunny climate grow tomatoes that are among the most sought-after on earth, with remarkable, sweet, intense tomato flavor. In a marketplace of mediocre tomato sauces, a can of San Marzano tomatoes with absolutely no embellishment is simply exquisite. Add some fresh herbs, and enter the gates of heaven. You can go further and add olive oil and garlic to make a legitimate sauce; but these tomatoes, served as is, are all the legitimacy one needs. They’re also low calorie—as little as 25 calories per half cup. Read the full review and see the three different kinds of tomatoes—crushed, diced and whole—and how to use them. For additional excitement, check out the Pasta & Sauce Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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January 5, 2008 at 9:41 am
· Filed under Diet Nibbles, Kosher Nibbles, Salts/Seasonings, Vegetables
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 Delicious Birds Eye Steamfresh veggies steam fast, with no pots to clean. |
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Most people we know want to eat healthier and lose weight. Everyone wants to fight childhood obesity. Yet, when you suggest eating lots of healthy, low-calorie, steamed vegetables, there are more excuses than Brussels sprouts. Major food companies have listened, and have provided convenient, flavorful solutions for better steamed vegetables, plus fish and other proteins. You now can have delicious, low-calorie veggies in as little as one and a half minutes, for meals or snacking, and entire steamed meals in five to eight minutes. So put that old-fashioned steamer away: Here are healthy foods a 10-year-old can prepare:
- Birds Eye Steamfresh, the first product in our lineup, are frozen vegetables that steam in the microwave (certified kosher).
- McCormick Veggie Steamers provide seasonings and microwaveable bag units that take the guesswork out of cooking: Just add the specified amount of vegetables or fish and your meal is ready pronto.
- Ziploc Zip ‘n Steam Bags provide just the bag: Add your own ingredients. The bags are preprinted with cooking times for standard foods. Glad makes a similar product. |
| More good news: No pots to clean. Full steam ahead! Read the full review and find more of our favorite products in the Vegetables Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. (Looking for low-calorie foods? Check out Diet Nibbles.) |
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