Make your food look more beautiful this holiday season.

Sometimes, exciting food isn’t about complex cooking skills, but in an artistic outlook. The difference between your presentation and that at a fine restaurant may simply be a colorful and imaginative garnish.

This red snapper from Aureole in New York City uses two chef techniques:

 
In this dish, red snapper was placed upon a molded circle of pea puree. The edible garnish includes corn kernels,sprouts, tomato (you can use red bell pepper) and zucchini.

The result: edible art.

 
Is there something special for your favorite cook?
  

Sugar-free brownies and lemon bars from Silverland Bakery.

The bakery’s sugar-free line was years in development, trying alternative noncaloric sweeteners and settling on the world’s finest, maltitol (see the different sugar substitutes).

Current choices include:

You can order individual flavors or a sampler tray that includes both.

A 12-piece gift tray is $32.95 at SilverlandBakery.com. The bars are two-inch squares.

Nutritional Information

For the Sugar-Free Double Chocolate Brownie/Sugar-Free Lemon Bar

 
Complete nutritional information is on the website (scroll down to the bottom of the page; the link is at the end of the first column of information).

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You’ll note in the ingredients list that butternut squash is used instead of pumpkin. This is often done in the restaurant, food service, and food manufacturing industries, because it is so much easier to work with butternut squash. Mush of what is sold as “pumpkin pie filling” is butternut squash.

Both pumpkin and butternut squash are orange-fleshed winter squash, members of the Cucurbita genus; they look and taste almost identical in recipes. The rest is, as they say, marketing. (Would you rather have a pumpkin pie or a butternut squash pie?)
> The different types of squash.

> The history of squash.
 
 
RECIPE: BUTTERNUT SQUASH & PUMPKIN LASAGNA

Ingredients For 4-6 Servings

Pumpkin lasagna for holiday season. Photo courtesy Elegant Affairs Caterers.

1. PREHEAT oven to 400°F. Place the butternut squash directly in the oven, whole. Bake for 20 minutes or until soft enough to cut in half with little effort.

2. CUT into quarters, place in a baking dish or large cast iron skillet, and roast for 40 more minutes or until the skin can be easily peeled away from the flesh. Cut into chunks about 1/2 inch to 1 inch in size. Set aside.

3. REDUCE the heat of the oven to 350°F. In a small bowl, mix together the pumpkin and the next 7 ingredients (salt through maple syrup). Set aside.

4. STIR together the ricotta, 2/3 of the chopped mozzarella, and 1/4 cup of Parmesan in another small bowl. Set aside.

5. LIGHTLY COAT a baking dish with cooking spray. Spoon 1/3 cup of the pumpkin sauce in the dish. Top with 2 lasagna noodles. Spoon 1/4 of the ricotta mixture over the noodles. Top with 1/4 of the butternut squash chunks. Top with 1/3 cup of sauce.

6. TOP with two more noodles, continuing to layer like this until all the cheese and squash is used. Add last 2 lasagna noodles, and remaining sauce. Dot the top with remaining chopped mozzarella and sprinkle with remaining Parmesan.

7. COVER with foil. Bake for 50 minutes. Let stand, covered, on a rack for 20 minutes before serving.
 
 

CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM.

There are different ways to braid a challah, but we’ve never seen one this clever.

To celebrate Chanukah, Hanukkah or however you spell it, Manhattan specialty food purveyor Eli Zabar has created this whimsical challah menorah.

It’s not kosher, but it is delicious. Order yours at EliZabar.com.

At $45, it may be the costliest bread you’ve ever eaten; but the extra labor to create the menorah must be factored in.

WHAT EXACTLY IS CHALLAH BREAD?

Challah is a special braided bread consumed on the Jewish Sabbath and holidays.

According to Jewish tradition, the three Sabbath meals (Friday dinner, Saturday lunch and Saturday dinner) and two meals for each holiday (dinner the evening of the holiday and lunch the following day) each begin with two complete loaves of challah. This two loaves commemorate the manna that fell from the heavens to feed the Israelites as they wandered in the desert after their exodus from Egypt.

According to the legend, manna did not fall on Sabbath or holidays; instead, a double portion would fall the day before.

By tradition, each single loaf loaf of challah is woven from six ropes of dough. The braided loaf is then brushed with an egg wash before baking, which adds a golden sheen. Together, both loaves have twelve strands, which represent the 12 tribes of Israel.

Traditional challah is a sweet, eggy bread mixed from eggs (often five of them), fine white flour, water, sugar, yeast, and salt.

 
Unlike brioche, another sweet, eggy bread, challah is usually parve, containing no butter or milk.
HOW TO PRONOUNCE “CHALLAH”

It is not “hollah.” The “ch” at the beginning of the word is a gutteral sound most familiar as the German “ach,” or the American expression of disgust, “yech.”

Here’s the actual pronunciation in an audio file (just click).
  

The ingredients are organic and local, from family farms. The maple syrup is tapped from trees a mile from the bakery, the apple cider is made in Greensboro, the butter arrives from nearby Cabot Creamery in Cabot, the eggs from Hardwick, the honey from Ferrisburg and the cranberries from East Fairfield.

That’s locavore!

The cakes are all natural: no artificial flavors, corn syrup solids, food color, high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated soybean oil or invert sugars.

Bien fait means well done in French and these certainly are!

The loaves are so dense, they can easily be split between two cake fans, or cut into four or five smaller slices to serve with a cup of tea.

We tried three flavors: Chocolate, Cranberry Almond and Maple Pecan, our favorite of the three—although we hasten to add, all three disappeared pretty quickly. We look forward to trying the other two varieties, Honey Berry and Signature Bourbon Fruitcake.

The one-pound tea cakes are $15.00 each, from BienFaitCakes.com.

For the holiday season, they’re a delicious gift. And for year-round, too. They can be frozen and sliced whenever you feel a cake attack coming on.