Beer Nuts is a brand of peanuts with a sweet-and-salty glaze. They don’t contain beer. Rather, they were marketed as a more glamorous accompaniment to beer than the ubiquitous salted peanuts.

In this concept, Peanut Butter & Co. founder Lee Zalben topped a piece of rustic whole wheat bread with his Smooth Operator creamy premium peanut butter, plus crunchy Beer Nuts.

We prefer our PB with a kick, so we substituted his The Heat Is On peanut butter, blended with cayenne peppers, chili powder and crushed red peppers.

The PB & Co. line is certified kosher by OU.

MAKE YOUR OWN BEER NUTS

Classic beer nuts are sweet and salty, but you can tweak the recipe to add additional flavors: cinnamon for sweetness or cayenne pepper for heat. You can use Beer Nuts on a PB sandwich, ice cream, salad, yogurt, as a soup garnish and in many other ways—including straight snacking, of course.

Ingredients For 4.5 Cups

 
Preparation

1. BRING peanuts, sugar salt and water to a boil in a saucepan. Continue to boil until all liquid is absorbed, about 25-30 minutes.

2. PREHEAT oven to 300°F.

3. SPREAD nuts on lightly greased jelly roll pan; sprinkle with salt and optional spices as desired. Bake 20 minutes.

4. REMOVE from oven, gently stir and sprinkle with more salt as desired. Bake for 20 more minutes. Cool completely and store in an airtight container.

For those who like things minty, here’s a fun drink for St. Patrick’s Day: a Peppermint Paddy Martini.

The recipe is from McCormick, which uses its McCormick Pure Peppermint Extract to create the mintiness.

Note that Peppermint Paddy, not Peppermint Patty or Peppermint Pattie, is the right name for this drink.

 
And while we’re on the subject, it’s St. Paddy’s Day, not St. Patty’s Day. Here’s why.

It may look like mousse, but it’s a Peppermint Paddy Martini. Photo courtesy McCormick.

Ingredients For 4 Cocktails

 
*Use sanding sugar or a raw brown sugar such as demerara or turbinado (Sugar In The Raw). You can find green sanding sugar, shown in the photo below, in baking supplies stores or online.

Preparation

1. PREPARE Martini glasses with optional sugar rim. Wet the outside rim of martini glass with peppermint extract. Dip glass in coarse sugar to lightly coat.

2. FILL cocktail shaker 1/3 full with ice. Add first 5 ingredients; shake until well mixed and chilled. Strain into glass.

3. TOP each with a dollop of Peppermint Whipped Cream, if desired.

Ingredients For About 2 Cups

 
Preparation

1. BEAT cream, confectioners’ sugar and peppermint extract in medium bowl with electric mixer on high speed, until stiff peaks form.

2. POUR in Martini, top with whipped cream and serve.
  

Its ingredients include tomatoes (41%), tomato purée (5%), vinegar, sugar, onions, sultanas, sea salt, mustard seed and spices.

In the U.S. it’s called…ketchup.

But what a ketchup!

The layering of flavors is magnificent: fruity from the tomatoes and the sultanas, pungent from the vinegar and mustard seed, oniony from the onions. It’s sweet enough for American palates used to Heinz.

(By contrast, Heinz ketchup ingredients are tomato concentrate, vinegar, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, salt, spice, onion powder, natural flavoring and Tabasco.)

The texture, the rich fruity taste and the impeccable seasoning make Ballymaloe a ketchup you can eat from the spoon (if you’re so inclined).

It’s ketchup the way it used to be, when it was a homemade condiment—before it got “blandified” by big American brands into tomato paste blended with high fructose corn syrup.

Ballymaloe ketchup is the house recipe from the Ballymaloe Country House in Cork, Ireland. The Country House is a former private home, renovated into a hotel and restaurant (and it looks absolutely charming).

You can buy the ketchup online at the BallymaloeUSA.com website; $5.29 per 8.5-ounce bottle.

It is also available at select retailers, including A&P, Dean & DeLuca, Fairway, Food Emporium and King’s.

Learn more about Ballymaloe on the company website.

Bring a bottle as a house gift, or give them as stocking stuffers. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.

It can include meat, poultry, seafood or other ingredients. Like grains and legumes.

If you’re not eating enough whole grains, here’s an easy way to combine them with veggies into a luncheon salad or a dinner first course or side.

We love the bright colors in this photo from Melissas.com. It shows how important eye appeal is.

For St. Patrick’s Day, you can do a medley of greens: artichokes, arugula, asparagus, bok choy, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, collards, fiddleheads, green beans, green onions, kale, kohlrabi, mizuna, mustard greens, pea pods, snow peas, spinach, sprouts, Swiss chard, tatsoi, turnip greens and watercress.

FIRST: PICK A WHOLE GRAIN

Don’t be afraid to try a grain you’ve never had before. If you can’t find any of these in your supermarket, check a natural food store.

 
Need help with choosing colored vegetables? Here’s an extensive list.
 
Plus

 
Skip the lettuces; you’ve got other opportunities for lettuce salads.
 
LAST: PICK A DRESSING

A vinaigrette is the best option here; but there are many, many vinaigrettes to try, varying types of oil and types of vinegar or citrus juice.

After the salad is tossed. Photo courtesy Melissas.

 
See all of the culinary oils in our Culinary Oils Glossary.
 
Types Of Vinegar

 
Plus

 
As you can see, the number of combinations will last through many, many salads.
 
Take a look at all the vinegar types in our Vinegar Glossary.

†These oils can be very strong in flavor, and are best diluted with olive oil or canola oil. Start with a 1:3 proportion of strong oil to mild oil, and tweak to find the proportions that are right for you.
  

 
On days when we’re not lunching on products for NIBBLE reviews, we’re guilty of all of these.
 
Then we were invited to sample lunch at Between The Bread, a takeout place in midtown Manhattan (145 West 55th Street) that’s different from any takeout we’ve ever seen. It’s as if a nutritionist had dreamed up the take-out menu:

 
For those who need a pasta fix, there are orzo salad a variety of penne dishes, along with fresh soups and yes, some sandwiches for those who must have something “between the bread.”

 
*Also called a scallop or escalope, paillard is a piece of boneless meat orpoultry that has been thinned with a mallet or rolling pin; it can also be butterflied.

 
Everything looks beautiful and fresh. You wouldn’t even think of it as “good-for-you food,” but as “I want to eat it now food.”

It’s how America should eat.

Tell the counter attendant not to include the rolls that come with the entrées. They’re O.K. but not worth the empty calories. Ditto for the muffins.

There are desserts: bread pudding and assortment of bars, cookies and cakes. You’ve done so well with your choices, though: Pass them by.

If only there were a Between The Bread everywhere. Maybe it needs a name change though, to No Bread Necessary.