While American colonists enjoyed a hearty, rich peanut soup (here’s a peanut soup recipe from Colonial Williamsburg), and Civil War soldiers snacked on “goober peas,” the majority of the peanut crop was used as animal feed until the 1930s. Then peanuts began to come into their own.

The next burst of popularity came in the late 1960s. Until then, shelled peanuts were available in two varieties: salted and unsalted, cooked in oil. Planters introduced dry roasted peanuts, eliminating the oil slick that attached to the fingers of peanut nibblers.

Peanuts are nutritious: They’re a good source of monounsaturated (heart healthy) fats, which helps to maintain the immune system. Unsaturated fat is good for you: It’s a component of cell membranes that is needed for cell growth and daily repair.

One serving of dry-roasted peanuts (30 grams) contains 12 grams of unsaturated fat, 2 grams of saturated fat and 0 cholesterol. It also contains protein, folate, copper, phosphorus, magnesium, niacin and thiamine.

Sweet flavored peanuts can be used as cereal, pancake and ice cream toppers or baked into recipes. But savory flavors require a different treatment. Here are our 10 favorite ways to use savory flavored peanuts:

As long as we’re talking peanuts and salad, try this “Peanut Butter & Jelly Salad.”

It uses neither peanut butter or jelly, but the suggestion of them. It’s what we call “marketing”: Not only is it tasty, but it’s a way to get kids to eat more salad.

Ingredients Per Portion

 
Preparation

1. MIX grapes and peanuts with other salad ingredients. Toss to coat with dressing.

2. FILL lettuce cup and serve.
 
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE USE FOR FLAVORED PEANUTS? LET US KNOW!
  

Sip your candy bar, drink your dessert: Phillips Distilling Company has launched UV Candy Bar, a chocolate- and caramel-flavored vodka. It’s 17th vodka flavor in the UV Vodka line, that also includes UV Cake, UV Chocolate Cake and UV Whipped.

And the bottles are flying off the shelf: Sales increased 81% last year. At a suggested retail price of $12.99 for a 750mL bottle, it’s an affordable treat.

Bold, unique and sweet, dessert-flavored vodkas can indeed substitute for dessert. Just a shot can be a sweet conclusion to dinner: No high-calorie dessert necessary.

While we enjoyed drinking shots, the vodka can be mixed into many cocktails, including a riff on the famous White Russian. Here are two recipes to start you off.

EASY CANDY BAR COCKTAIL

Ingredients

1. SHAKE all ingredients in a cocktail shaker.

2. Serve over ice in a rocks glass.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. SHAKE all ingredients in a cocktail shaker.

2. Serve over ice in a rocks glass.Hardcore Candy Bar

FIND MORE OF OUR FAVORITE COCKTAIL RECIPES.
  

That’s how we developed our Pretzel Yogurt Parfait. We were inspired by a bag of pretzel nuggets (alternatively, crush regular pretzels with a rolling pin) and memories of Yo Crunch yogurt, variously mixed with cereals, cookie pieces and candy bits.

We love crunch, as do most Americans: That’s why crunchy chips of all kinds are the biggest-volume snack.

 
What’s your favorite savory yogurt parfait recipe?

FIND OUR FAVORITE YOGURT BRANDS AND MORE YOGURT RECIPES.

Recently we discovered Tacombi, a taco concept that began five years ago on the beaches of Mexico. There, the chef turned a converted Volkswagen microbus into a taco truck. Last year Tacombi moved shop to the Nolita neighborhood of New York City, serving tacos and Mexican beers from the different culinary regions of Mexico. Check out Tacombi.com.

We asked chef Luis Aguilar about new directions to take a basic chicken taco. His concepts are below. But the overall tip is: Whatever “flavor” of taco you’re working on, look through the ingredients at hand and get inspired to make something you’ve never made before.

CHICKEN TACO RECIPE IDEAS

How many ways can you garnish a basic
chicken taco? Photo courtesy McCormick.com.

 
HAVE OTHER IDEAS? LET US KNOW!
  

[1] Don’t have a proper shrimp cocktail glass? Use what you do have, from a julep glass to a Martini glass or anything other stemware. Note also that instead of cocktail sauce, the shrimp are paired with pesto (photo © Butter Restaurant | NYC).

[2] Or, how about serving the shrimp with salsa? Here, pico de gallo hits the spot (photo © Simply Organic | Facebook).

[3] This deconstructed shrimp cocktail is served with two sauces and a grilled lemon (photo © Payard Restaurant | New York City).

[4] How about serving the shrimp cocktail on lettuce leaves? Or, you can cut the shrimp into pieces that fit into a leaf of endive (photo © Goulash Riot | Bluebird London).

[5] Consider grilling the shrimp, plain or with tandoori spices (photo © Prawn & Basil | Thousand Oaks, California).

[6] At the end of the day, a plain plate and a ramekin of sauce will do (photo © Citarella | NYC).

National Shrimp Day is on May 10th, celebrating America’s favorite seafood, shrimp. For many people, the classiest first course for a steakhouse dinner is a shrimp cocktail. It’s also one of the easiest to make at home, typically a simple preparation of shredded lettuce and boiled shrimp, garnished with cocktail sauce and a lemon wedge. The “classy” part is that a shrimp cocktail is popularly served in a stemmed dish.

Shrimp cocktail is not only easy to prepare, but it’s also healthful fare, low in calories.

But there’s no need to stick to Grandma’s shrimp cocktail preparation. Switch it up with these ideas.
 
 
1. DISHWARE

You don’t need stemmed glass “shrimp cocktail dishes.” A pretty arrangement on a plate will work, as will a coupe (sherbet Champagne) glass, a Martini glass, Margarita glass, or a rocks glass.

Not to mention the julep glass in photo #1.

Standard plates and bowls with ramekins (or shot glasses) of sauce will work, too. See photo #6.
 
 
2. GREENS

Switch up the greens. Instead of the conventional iceberg or romaine lettuce underneath the shrimp, use butter lettuce, a mesclun mix, arugula or watercress, or shredded radicchio and endive.

Or take that romaine or butter lettuce leaf and fill it with the shrimp cocktail: shrimp drizzled with sauce (photo #4).

You can also cut the shrimp into sizes that fit into an endive leaf boat.

You can use the shrimp to garnish an iceberg wedge (we used toothpicks to skewer them into the top of the wedge).

You can go in a completely different direction: Serve the shrimp on top of cucumber salad, pink and white grapefruit salad with red onion, red cabbage salad, wilted spinach, watercress salad.

Set the shrimp atop marinated green beans, bean salad, corn salad, or purple potato salad.

Or, serve an individual bowl of shrimp on a plate with different dipping sauces, as they do at Payard restaurant in New York City (photo #3).

You don’t need a special plate: just a bowl for the shrimp and ramekins or shot glasses for the sauces (photo #6).

Check out this Asian-inspired salad recipe.
 
 
3. MULTIPLE DRESSINGS, DIFFERENT DRESSINGS

Cocktail sauce (see the recipe below) is traditional, but you don’t need to stick with tradition. Add curry powder or some mild fresh chile to spice up a conventional cocktail sauce, or use salsa, like the pico de gallo salsa in photo #2.

Thousand island dressing, rémoulade, green goddess or other favorite works just as well.

Spicy mayonnaise is also an option, as is the surf-and-turf suggestion of Baconnaise, a delicious bacon-flavored mayonnaise.
 
 
4. CREATIVE GARNISHES

A lemon or lime wedge adds color to the plate and a hit of citrus juice is welcome in just about anything.

How about a garnish of chopped hard-boiled egg or even crumbled bacon (another surf-and-turf).

You can serve a garnish like a hard-boiled egg or sliced avocado or mango on a plate, arranged with the shrimp and the sauce.

Consider additional garnish options, from snipped chives, scallions, or a few different olives to crumbled bacon (surf and turf again!) to a sweet counterpoint, such as a small pineapple wedge or cube, or lychee.

We also like a scattering of freeze-dried vegetable snacks like Crunchies.
 
 
5. THE SHRIMP ITSELF

Instead of boiled shrimp, you can grill the shrimp over coals or fire for that special grilled flavor.

Consider tandoor or other global spices for even more panache.
 
 
RECIPE: MOM’S COCKTAIL SAUCE RECIPE

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. BLEND the ingredients.

2. CHILL for two hours or longer to allow flavors to meld.
 
 
What’s your approach to shrimp cocktail? Let us know!