Yet beyond snacking, versatile, popular grapes demand to be incorporated into recipes.

What kind of grapes? Many different subspecies are grown: Popular varieties include Thompson seedless. an early, green grape; red seedless. an early, red grape; Tokay and Cardinal, early, bright-red, seeded grapes; and Emperor, late, deep-red, seeded grapes.

But the grocery store typically doesn’t provide the details. It boils down to black, green and red grapes. You can do a taste test among them; we enjoy mixing up the colors in our recipes.

Seeded versus seedless grapes? Again, do a taste test. Seedless grapes are certainly more convenient, but you may prefer the flavor of the seeded varieties.

Make grape jelly can be a challenge, but here are 12 easy ways to enjoy grapes.

1. Freeze the grapes as snacks. Just pull them off the stems and place them on a cookie sheet in a single layer to freeze; then store them in a plastic bag. You get a grape sorbet effect without added sugar.

2. Freeze the grapes as snacks. Make grape sorbet.

3. Use frozen grapes as ice cubes. Add them to soft drinks or sweet cocktails.

4. Make grape Margaritas. This frozen grape Margarita recipe is delish.

Serve with cocktails: Blue Cheese & Walnut Dusted Grapes. Photo courtesy Whole Foods Market. Get the recipe.

5. Make grape hors d’oeuvre. Skewer them with cubes of cheese or mozzarella balls, wrap them in prosciutto, or make this divine recipe (photo above) for Blue Cheese & Walnut Dusted Grapes appetizer pops.

6. Add grapes to a salad. Take a look at this recipe for Curried Chicken Salad With Grapes, Pecans & Pomegranate Vinaigrette or this recipe. Or add them to a radicchio salad.

7. Make a Waldorf Salad. This retro dish, created for ladies who lunched at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City, consists of chopped apples, grapes and walnuts dressed with mayonnaise, on a bed of lettuce. The original recipe, with neither grapes nor walnuts, was created for a charity ball in 1893. Here’s the recipe and more history.

8. Add grapes to fish and seafood. We love this recipe for Grilled Whole Fish With Minted Grape Relish.

9. Serve grapes with cheese. We love grapes with blue cheese. Or, serve them with a slice of this savory blue cheese cheesecake.

10. Use grapes to garnish. You can garnish just about any dish with grapes. For desserts, roll them in confectioners sugar for “frosted” grapes.
11. Pickle them. Serve pickled grapes with sandwiches, seafood and poultry. Here’s an easy pickling recipe.

12. Make a dessert soup. Purée the grapes with some grape juice (we prefer Knudsen’s) and mint; sweeten to taste. Garnish with frozen grapes!
Find more recipe inspiration from the California Table Grape Commission.

Our Top Pick Of The Week is Adult Chocolate Milk: a pour-and-serve combination that tastes like chocolate milk with a shot of vodka. It rocks!

What if you’re jonesing for a shot or two, but don’t have Adult Chocolate Milk?

If you have chocolate ice cream, coffee liqueur and vodka, you can make this Chocolate Black Russian, a cross between a cocktail and a milkshake.

Serve it for dessert. You can vary the recipe with flavored vodka: cherry, coffee, orange, raspberry and vanilla vodkas work well in this recipe.

Your next “ice cream social” will be a lot more social when you serve this!

Find more of our favorite cocktail and ice cream recipes.

And it’s not just chocolate milk. The Adult Beverage Company also makes Adult Strawberry Milk for the enjoyment of deserving [adult] boys and girls.

We love it: a sophisticated hit of chocolate (or strawberry) for a relaxing moment at home, a delight for guests and a great gift idea.

At $17.99 for a 750ml retro-chic bottle, it’s also a yummy gift.

Read the full review and lay in a stock.

If you have an immediate need for a glass of Adult Chocolate Milk but can’t get to the store, here’s a Chocolate Black Russian—a cross between a cocktail and a milkshake—that you can make with chocolate ice cream, coffee liqueur and vodka.

It’s become one of our favorite desserts!

Adult Chocolate Milk, and the “Neapolitan” cocktail made with Adult Chocolate Milk and Adult Strawberry Milk. Photo courtesy Adult Beverage Company.

[2] Pancakes with savory garnish: quark cheese and marinated cherry tomatoes (photo © Wisconsin Cheese).

If you like yogurt—or even if you don’t—try quark cheese. It’s smooth and creamy like Greek yogurt or sour cream.

In fact, quark has approximately the same amount of calories, but a richer flavor, than low-fat sour cream. So it’s a real find for your baked potato and chili.
 
 
WHAT IS QUARK? 

Quark is a soft, unripened (fresh) cow’s milk cheese. In North America, the recipe is almost identical to fromage blanc, except that fromage blanc is totally fat-free.

Quark is so popular in Germany that it accounts for almost half of that country’s total cheese production: The average German eats about 10 pounds of quark a year.

You can find quark in every German market. But it’s a different style of quark (details below).

In other parts of Europe, quark is also known as koarg, kwark, qwark, quarg, twarog, saurmilchquark, speisequark and fromage frais.

In the U.S. and Canada, quark has yet to catch on. It’s only made by artisan dairies, and some dairies make 2% and fat-free versions in addition to full-fat quark.

The next time you see it, take it home and see how it enriches your daily dining. If you can’t find it locally, you can buy it online.

January 19th is World Quark Cheese Day.
 
 
> The history of cheese.
 
 
> The different types of cheese: a glossary.

Quark is the German word for curds; curds are coagulated milk. Some definitions translate it as “cottage cheese.”

However, neither American nor European quark resembles what Americans know as cottage cheese, with recognizable curds. With quark, the curd consistency is smooth, like curdled milk (see photo below).

In commercial production it is formed into blocks with the consistency of ricotta or pot cheese.

In the United States and Canada, quark is a somewhat different product, most often sold in plastic tubs with most or all of the whey.

This creates a style that has the texture of yogurt or sour cream: a denser, more spreadable consistency. The texture of domestic quarks varies by the preference of the producer.
 
 
HOW TO ENJOY QUARK

Both European and American styles are eaten the same way.

Quark can be eaten like yogurt, plain, or blended with fruit or jam. In Germany, it is mixed with chives as a bread spread.

Use it to top a baked potato or chili, as a soup garnish, or anywhere you’d like a hit of yogurt or sour cream. Use it to make a creamy sauce: Unlike yogurt, the heat won’t curdle it.

On the sweet side, quark is a popular ingredient in filled pastries, sweet sauces, soufflés, cheesecakes, and mousses.

[3] American style, creamy quark from Vermont Creamery (photo by Claire Freierman © THE NIBBLE).

More about quark and other fresh cheeses, including crème fraîche, fromage blanc, labné, mascarpone and queso fresco.
 
_______________

*In German, Quark and Topfen, the names of cheeses, are also used to mean “nonsense.” This latter usage is believed to be an inspiration for the passage written by James Joyce in his fanciful novel, Finnegan’s Wake: “Three quarks for Muster Mark!/Sure he hasn’t got much of a bark/And sure any he has it’s all beside the mark.”

This excerpt is from a 13-line poem directed against King Mark, the cuckolded husband in the Tristan and Isolde (Iseult) legend. The use of the word “quark” to describe elementary particles of matter was taken from this poem by Murray Gell-Mann, the physicist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize for his work in classifying quarks. The allusion to three quarks seemed perfect to him, since originally there were only three subatomic quarks.
 

Typically served with mesclun or frisée, sometime with beets, sometime with toasted walnuts or pecans, it’s one of our favorite foods. And it’s so easy to make.

We’ve hesitated to make it at home too often, because we love creamy, fresh goat cheese so much that an entire 10.5-ounce log can disappear at one meal.

But we devised a new strategy: Buy one or two crottins at a time.

A crottin (crow-TAHN) is a small, individual-size goat cheese shaped like a drum. But the name means something earthier in French: “dropping” or goat/horse dung.

Why stick a cheese with a name like that? As the crottin ages, it becomes dark and hard and bears a resemblance to the animal dropping. Mostly, though, it’s enjoyed when fresh or moderately aged, resembling only a delicious, drum-shaped cheese.

The small size makes a crottin, whole or halved, a popular pairing with a salad.

Crottin is the signature goat cheese shape of the Loire Valley; Crottin di Chavignol, an AOC-designated cheese, has been produced in and around the village of Chavignol since the 16th century.
MIX & MATCH GOAT CHEESE SALAD RECIPE INGREDIENTS

Use a crottin or a one-inch slice from a log of goat cheese. You can buy a plain log or one rolled in ash, herbs, peppercorns and other spices. Or, roll a plain log in the coating of your choice before slicing,

Cheese

 
*To bake goat cheese: Preheat oven to 375°F. Season panko with a pinch of sea salt and add just enough olive oil to moisten. Roll cheese in crumbs; place cheese on a lightly greased cookie sheet and bake for 5 to 8 minutes or until soft.

Vegetables

Goat cheese crottins aging. Photo courtesy Vermont Creamery.

Fruits

 
Nuts, Raw Or Toasted

 
Dressing

 
On The Side

 
WHY GOAT CHEESE IS GOOD FOR YOU

Long considered an alternative for those with cow’s milk sensitivities, people who are lactose-intolerant (or otherwise have difficulty digesting milk products) can often enjoy goat cheese with impunity.

 
Here’s an overview of goat cheese and why it’s good for you, plus yummy recipes for goat cheese caramels and goat cheese fudge.