Banfi Rosa Regale Brachetto d’Acqui: a wine that says “Be My Valentine.”

If you’ve taken a look at Champagne prices, you’d like a recommendation on which way to go.

Our recommendation: Steer away from Champagne and look at other sparkling wines. Here are two of our favorite affordable bubblies for Valentine’s Day. Both are crowd pleasers. One is a perfect dessert wine or an apéritif; the other can be enjoyed anytime, with any course.

Drink them yourself or give them as gifts. As with all sparkling wines, serve them chilled.
 
BANFI ROSA REGALE BRACHETTO D’ACQUI

This sweet sparkling wine from the Piedmont region of Italy is a vivid rose red. The color is natural!

It’s made from the brachetto di acqui grape, which grows in the area of Acqui Terme in rocky, calcareous soil (tough soil makes better wines).

In addition to dessert—cakes, tarts, ice cream—it pairs well with seafood, cheeses, spicy fare and yes, that box of Valentine chocolate.

One of our friends calls this wine “love at first sip.” It’s pretty romantic stuff.

The price: $17-$20 per bottle. The pronunciation: bra-KET-toe d’AH-qwee.

There’s more on the brand’s web page.
 
YELLOWTAIL BUBBLES SPARKLING ROSÉ

A recent Top Pick Of The Week for the holidays, this sparkling wine from Australia makes everything more festive—at just $10-$11 per bottle. It’s not a sweet wine, but crisp and refreshing, so it can be paired with anything.

The fragrant nose promises cherries and strawberries on the palate. Unlike the deep red of Brachetto d’Acqui, it’s a pale pink color, similar to a rosé Champagne.

Depending on the retailer and promotion calendar, the bottle may come with a resealable, plastic cap that allows you to seal in the bubbles for the next day. If not, and if you don’t have one, pick up a Champagne resealer. It’s inexpensive, and really does keep that wine sparkling for days.

And it can be the part of the gift that remains, when the wine is long gone.

Here’s our full review of the wine.

And here’s the Yellowtail Bubbles Rosé web page.

It’s snow and ice today on the East Coast; when we look out the window we see…white. So we’re deferring our scheduled tip to tomorrow, to publish something more comforting:

Hot chocolate from chocolate chips, chocolate bars, even Hershey’s Kisses.

Even if you have no cocoa powder at home, you’re still in the chips if you have solid chocolate in any form. Baking chips are the easiest because you don’t have to chop them; although if you have a good chocolate bar—) or Lindt—the chocolate flavor will be better. First…
 
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COCOA AND HOT CHOCOLATE

You’re familiar with cocoa and hot chocolate, terms often used interchangeably. Technically, they’re different. There are also drinking chocolate and sipping chocolate—terms that don’t seem to have existed in the U.S. prior to the end of the 20th century (and the growth of the artisan food movement).

 
RECIPE: HOT CHOCOLATE FROM CHOCOLATE CHIPS & BARS

This is a very rich recipe, combining whole milk with half and half. If you want something less rich, use less half and half or all milk.

Prep time is 5 minutes, cook time is 15 minutes.

Top: Chop up chocolate bars to make rich hot chocolate. Chocolate chipsalso work, especially top-quality ones from Barry Callebaut or Guittard, available at KingArthurFlour.com. The company also sells sugar-free chocolate chips. Bottom: Melt chocolate chips into hot chocolate.

 
*While semisweet chocolate is the standard, you can use milk chocolate or white chocolate. White hot chocolate is splendid:

1. COMBINE the milk and half-and-half in a saucepan. Warm slowly over medium-low heat. When the milk is very hot but not yet boiling, stir in the chocolate chips.

2. STIR until melted and taste. If it’s too rich, add more milk. If you’ve used a high percentage cacao bar and the chocolate is not quite sweet enough, add sugar one teaspoon at a time.

3. STIR in optional flavors. Pour into mugs and top as desired.
 
EVEN MORE HOT CHOCOLATE: RECIPES, FLAVORS & TIPS TO MAKE RICHER HOT CHOCOLATE

 
 
PHOTOS: Top: Melting a chocolate-covered marshmallow into hot chocolate at Dominique Ansel. Bottom: Natural (left) and Dutched cocoa powders. Photo courtesy SilkRoadSpices.ca.

If you’re on the hunt for Valentine chocolate, you probably don’t have to hunt too hard. Even our drugstore looks like a chocolate shop.

But here are some yummy items we enjoy, year after year.

CHOCOLATE CHERRIES FROM CHOCLATIQUE

Most of us grew up hoping to get the chocolate covered cherry in the box of mixed chocolates. At Choclatique, you can get an entire box of cherries!

These are not the overly-sweet chocolate cherries of our youth. They are Grade A maraschino cherries that are marinated and then wrapped in a white chocolate-butter ganache. Next, they’re enrobed in premium dark chocolate shells (64% cacao).

The bonbons are allowed to to cure, so that the ganache centers liquefy. The result is a delicate liquid center with just a touch of white chocolate ganache—and a memorable chocolate cherry.

The chocolates are all natural and you can pick either a bright red ribbon for Valentine’s Day.

 
CHOCOLATE CARAMEL CRISP FROM GARRETT POPCORN

Garrett Popcorn, known for its high quality popcorn gift tins, has two suggestions for Valenetine’s Day:

 
Tins start at $39 for a one gallon and $69 for 2 gallons. The one gallon pink tin of Lover’s Mix is $47.

Order yours at GarrettPopcorn.com.
 
CLASSIC CHOCOLATES FROM LI-LAC

Li-Lac Chocolates is one of our favorite munching grounds. This chocolate shop specializes in old-fashioned chocolates of top quality—the kind it’s become hard to find.

Take a look at the choices at Li-LacChocolates.com.

Top: Gourmet chocolate cherries from Choclatique. Middle and bottom: Lover’s Mix and the Valentine tin from Garrett Popcorn.

The chocolates are certified kosher.
 
For those looking for kosher chocolate, LakeChamplainChocolates.com is another favorite chocolatier. Let us emphasize that, kosher or not, these to companies make excellent chocolates.
 
MORE FAVORITE CHOCOLATES

We’re happy with anything from John & Kira’s or Burdick Chocolate, two of America’s great artisan chocolatiers.

Cherry Chews from Gimbal’s are available in
several sizes, and are very affordable if you
like to give something to many friends.

For something fun, affordable and not chocolate, try Gimbal’s Cherry Chews. They’re all natural and made with real cherry juice. They were created to have a cherry shape, but as you can see in the photo, they also resemble Valentine hearts.

And they also double as celebratory sweets for George Washington’s Birthday.

Bags in several sizes start at $1.39 to give out to friends and colleagues. A 38-ounce jar is just $13.99.

Get them at GimbalsCandy.com.

We love bibimbap (bee-bim-BOP), a signature Korean dish. It’s a variation of our currently trending rice bowl. The word literally means “mixed rice”—rice mixed with several other ingredients.

We’ve written about bibimbap previously, but for the eve of the lunar new year (this year, it’s Sunday, February 7th), it’s especially appropriate. It’s what Koreans traditionally eat on their new year’s eve.

It also happens to be Super Bowl Sunday; if your friends are foodies, this is a good dish for a crowd.
 
 
WHAT IS BIBIMBAP?

A bowl of warm white rice is topped with seasoned vegetables*; sliced beef, chicken or seafood; and a raw or fried egg. The yolk of the egg (or the entire raw egg) binds the ingredients when they are mixed together.

Chile paste, fermented soybean paste or soy sauce are served as condiments. After the ingredients are blended each individual diner, condiments added at the table.

For visual appeal, the vegetables are often placed so that adjacent colors complement each other.

The recipe below, from Good Eggs, requires 15 minutes of active time, and a total of 35 minutes. It doesn’t require you to be handy with a knife: Instead of thin slices of beef, you use ground beef.

If you like bibimbap as much as we do, you can experiment with other grains. Quinoa bibimbap with kale, anyone?
 
 
RECIPE: BIBIMBAP RICE BOWL

Ingredients For 4-6 Servings

 
Preparation

1. RINSE the rice a few times in a fine-mesh sieve until the water runs clear. Add the rice to a pot and cover it with water. Let it soak for 20 minutes, then strain it again. Add the rice back to the pot and add 3 cups of water. Bring the rice and water to a boil, uncovered. When the water reaches a rolling boil…

2. TURN the flame to low, cover the pot and let the rice simmer for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, turn the heat off and let it steam for 10 minutes with the cover on. After 10 minutes, fluff the rice with a fork: It’s ready. While the rice cooks

3. HEAT 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan. When the oil is hot, add the meat and break it up with the back of a wooden spoon. Turn the heat down and add the soy sauce and mirin, and stir. Cook for another 5-6 minutes, until the meat is cooked through. Remove from the heat.

4. SERVE: Spoon some rice into a bowl and sprinkle with sesame seeds, a splash of mirin, and a little bit of soy sauce. Top with beef, cilantro, scallions, radishes, cilantro and a spoonful of kimchi.
 

BIBIMBAP HISTORY

Bibimbap was traditionally eaten on the eve of the lunar new year, to enable households to use up all of their leftovers before the start of the new year. All of the leftovers were put in a bowl of rice and mixed together.

Use up your leftovers, or buy fresh ingredients. Or plan a party: Like paella and other rice main dishes, bibimbap is a good dish for a crowd.

Of course, bibimbap can be made from scratch with chosen ingredients. Each region and each cook has a preferred mix of ingredients.

At Korean restaurants you can get dolsot bibimbap (stone pot bibimbap), served in a stone bowl so hot that the ingredients sizzle. The raw egg cooks as soon as it’s mixed in.

Before the rice is placed in the bowl, the bottom can be coated with sesame oil, which makes the bottom of the rice cook to a crispy state, like the socarrat at the bottom of the

[1] Bibimbap served with the traditional raw egg at Kristalbelli | NYC (photo © Kristalbelli).

[2] If you don’t want to use a raw egg, fry it sunny side up (photo © Bibigo Ready Meals).

[3] Mix the ingredients with whatever garnishes you like; here, kimchi, radishes and scallions (photo © Good Eggs).

[4] Dolsot bibimbap, which is bibimbap served in a very hot stone bowl. It’s our favorite way to enjoy bibimbap at restaurants, since the rice on the bottom gets crispy (photo © Souschef.co.uk).

[5] Gochujang is a hot chile paste/sauce often added as a condiment (photo © Trifood).

*Commonly vegetables used include bean sprouts, julienned cucumber, julienned or shredded daikon (Japanese radish), julienned zucchini, nori (dried seaweed), shredded carrots, sliced mushrooms or whole enoki mushrooms, and spinach. Diced tofu, either uncooked or cooked, can be added.

†Mirin and saké are both called “rice wine.” Both are fermented from rice; mirin has a lower alcohol content and higher sugar content (as an analogy, think of sweet and dry vermouths. If you have saké but no mirin, make a substitute by adding a half teaspoon of sugar to the saké, and warm it slowly to dissolve the sugar.
 
 

If you have kids and like to make special treats for them, head to HungryHappenings.com and sign up for the emails. Even if you don’t make them, you’ll enjoy the creative ideas.

Here’s one that adults can enjoy, too: French fries shaped like footballs. The Football Fries recipe is on the Hungry Happenings website.

If you don’t want to be frying or reheating during the game, these recipes can be made in advance:

 
And don’t forget the Football Calzone.