Orange you excited by orange milk? Photo
courtesy TruMoo.

TruMoo encourages kids to drink more milk by making lowfat flavored milks in chocolate, coffee, strawberry and vanilla. They’re made with 35% less sugar than the leading chocolate/vanilla milk competitor.

For Halloween, TruMoo has tinted the vanilla milk orange.

Inspired by their Halloween milk, our tip for today is to tint your own milk, cottage cheese, half and half, sour cream or yogurt.

McCormick suggests 12 drops yellow and 4 drops red food color to tint 16 ounces (see their color chart).

You can tint a white cake mix orange with 50 drops of yellow and 8 drops of red.

Chocolate-covered orange peel is one of our favorite chocolate treats. You bite into the refreshing taste of citrus, covered in rich dark chocolate.

Fresh Valencia orange peels are sliced and candied before they are dipped into the chocolate, in a process that takes three days. One taste assures you that it’s been worth every minute.

The 7.25 ounce gift box, tied with a green satin ribbon, contains approximately 25 pieces and is $35.00.

Beyond Halloween gifting, we love to serve these at the end of a fine dinner, with coffee or tea. A couple of pieces are more satisfying; no other dessert is required!

Boo! Chocolate-covered bananas on a stick (photo © Nature Box).

These are healthful snacks. If you want to be a wee bit wicked, substitute white chocolate (melted) for the vanilla yogurt.

Beyond Halloween: These chocolate covered fruits are a welcome treat year-round. Just leave off the ghost eyes.
 
 
RECIPE #1: HALLOWEEN GHOST BANANA POPS

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. CUT bananas in half and freeze for 30 minutes.

2. REMOVE peel; insert popsicle sticks and dip bananas in yogurt. Add eyes & freeze on wax paper until ready to serve. Cover any imperfections with more yogurt.

Ingredients

Preparation

1. DIP the strawberries in the vanilla yogurt, add the eyes, and freeze until ready to serve.
 
 
MORE HEALTHY HALLOWEEN SNACKS

 
 
MORE FUN HALLOWEEN FOOD

Call them “boo-berries” (photo © Nature Box).

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

Broccoli and beet salad. Photo courtesy
LoveBeets.com.

Broccoli salad deserves more attention. It’s rich in powerful, cancer-fighting antioxidants, phytonutrients and carotenoids, which are missing in any significant level in most lettuces.

So today’s tip is: Make a broccoli salad. As with lettuce, there are many different ways you can combine and dress it, incorporating the global pantry of spices and other ingredients.

This recipe, from LoveBeets.com, adds healthy, crunchy seeds. It’s a quick, easy, healthful salad; great for lunch or as an appetizer with dinner.

Prep time 5 minutes, cook time 5 minutes.

RECIPE: BROCCOLI, BEET & TOASTED SEED SALAD WITH LEMON DRESSING

Ingredients For 4 Servings

 
Preparation

1. MAKE dressing: Whisk together the oil and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.S

2. STEAM the broccoli for 3 to 4 minutes until just tender but with a little bite. (The more slender broccolini and rabe will take less time.) While the broccoli is cooking…

3. TOAST the seeds over medium heat in a small frying pan. Add soy sauce and cook over medium heat, tossing regularly to completely coat, for about 3 minutes until the seeds are crisp and golden. Take care not to burn them or they will taste bitter.

Broccoli rabe (rapini) on the grill with a steak. Photo courtesy E & E Grillhouse | New York City.

4. ARRANGE the cooked broccoli and beet wedges on a plate, drizzle the dressing over them and sprinkle with the toasted seeds and chives. Serve hot or chilled.

 
BROCCOLI, BROCCOLINI & BROCCOLI RABE

Unable to gain entrance to French medical and law schools, the young men, who missed the caviar from home, became caviar importers. It was they who introduced caviar to Paris!

Had Melkoum and Mouchegh become a doctor and a lawyer, their names would probably not be known by connoisseurs worldwide. Instead, the name Petrossian is sets the world standard in fine caviar and other delicacies.

We are huge fans of Petrossian and urge anyone passing through Manhattan to treat themselves to a luxurious meal at the company’s Art Deco restaurant at Seventh Avenue and 58th Street, steps away from Carnegie Hall, Columbus Circle and Central Park.

There is a more casual café next door to the restaurant, where the restaurant’s beautiful pastries and savory delicacies (including caviar and foie gras) in an informal atmosphere.

 
This week we were invited to the restaurant and treated to a cocktail that is so fine (and memorable) that we wish we were getting married. Although most of us are probably not going to create it at home, it’s the perfect recipe to hand to the caterer for a special celebration. The name was inspired by fleur de sel, the finest French sea salt. We like to think of it as a bit of poetry (vers is French for verse or poetry).

 
RECIPE: THE PETROSSIAN FLEUR DE VERS

Ingredients For One Cocktail

 
For The Garnish

 
*St. Germain is one of our favorite liqueurs. Don’t hesitate to buy a bottle. It makes a delicious cocktail with Champagne or any sparkling wine.

†You can substitute yellow chartreuse if that’s what you have; see the note on chartreuse below.

 
Preparation

1. HALVE and juice the lemons. Set aside the juice and cut the juiced halves into three or four wedges, 3/8 to 1/2 inch wide. Remove all of the pulp and pith until you have a smooth “boat.”

2. COMBINE the gin, elderflower liqueur, chartreuse, lemon juice and rose water. Shake with ice in a cocktail shaker and strain into a Martini glass or Champagne flute or tulip.

3. PLACE the caviar beads in the lemon boat and float atop the cocktail.

 
WHAT IS CAVIAR POWDER?

Pearls of fine caviar are dried via a proprietary technique that intensifies its flavor. The dried pearls are sold in a grinder that enables you to grind some caviar over your food (eggs, buttered toast, grilled fish or seafood, potatoes and pasta for starters). Or, you can open the grinder and sprinkle full pearls of the caviar on the food.

We’re on our fourth refill of Petrossian Caviar Powder, a unique (and more affordable) way to enjoy fine caviar. We gave it our Food Innovation Award of 2011.

The grinder with 30 grams of caviar is $88.00; refills are $74.00. It’s a sure-to-enthrall gift for any caviar lover. Buy it at Petrossian.com.
 
WHAT IS CHARTREUSE?

Chartreuse, pronounced shahr-TROOZ, is a pale green or yellow liqueur made from brandy and aromatic herbs (green Chartreuse is aged with 130 different herbal extracts!). We prefer the original green Chartreuse, which has more complexity. Yellow chartreuse is a later recipe, lower in proof and a sweeter mix of herbs.

The liqueur, first made by Carthusian Monks in the 1740s, is named after the Grande Chartreuse monastery, located in the Chartreuse Mountains in southeastern France (in the general region of Grenoble). The liqueur, in turn, gave its name to the startling greenish-yellow color.