Our next Top Pick Of The Week will review 140 different granolas and mueslis. But you can make your own perfect mix of oats, nuts, seeds and dried fruits right now.

If you eat lots of granola, you can save a goodly amount of cash by buying rolled oats, nuts, seeds and dried fruits in bulk and making your own.

You can also tailor your recipe to a specific calorie count and/or sugar grams, and use lower-glycemic alternatives to honey and maple syrup, such as agave nectar and brown rice syrup.

Homemade granola can even become your signature special gift (it’s healthier than brownies). Whether in a clear plastic treat bag tied with a ribbon, or in a reusable gift tin or canister, any cereal eater/snacker will welcome it.

You can also buy gluten-free oats to make gluten-free granola—a wonderful gift for friends limiting their gluten intake.

Check out the video below to see how easy it is to make your own granola.

This recipe, Orange Spiced Cider, was created by tea expert James Labe for Ron Abuelo rum. It blends añejo (aged) rum with orange spice tea and apple cider.

ORANGE SPICED CIDER RECIPE

Ingredients Per Serving

 
*Constant Comment, originally made with black tea, is also available as a spiced green tea. There’s also a decaffeinated Constant Comment made with black tea.
 
Preparation

1. Heat cider until very hot.

2. Steep tea bag directly in cider for 5 minutes, covered.

3. Uncover, add rum and stir. Garnish with cinnamon stick.
 
 
Find more of our favorite winter cocktail recipes.
  

Then Chef Johnny Gnall introduced us to the Vacu Vin Instant Marinating Container for meats and vegetables.

Marinating helps retain natural juices, enhances flavors and helps to deliver better results when grilling, pan searing or roasting.

The easy-to-use Vacu Vin Instant Marinating Container, with a vacuum seal, makes it possible to marinate food in minutes instead of hours. Simply place the food in the container, add the marinade, fasten the lid and pump out the air to create a vacuum.

Explains Chef Johnny:

Marinating is one of these tricks: Taking a great piece of meat and marinating it, even in something as simple as olive oil and sliced garlic, can take things to that exceptional level.

Marinades work to infuse meat with flavor; but if you add salt, citrus, vinegar or some other acid, you actually tenderize the meat as well.

Moreover, you build flavors in rich layers. A sauce can add something special and complex, but marinating that food in the same sauce will deepen those flavors significantly, creating a fuller, rounder taste.

In the simplest terms, the Vacu Vin Instant Marinating Container is a Tupperware-like container with a vacuum pump attached to the lid. You pump it to remove air from the container and create a vacuum seal—a simpler approach to the Cryovac machines used in the kitchens of Ferran Adria, Thomas Keller and other chefs of reknown who vacuum marinate their foods to get a high concentration of flavor in a short amount of time. The Vacu Vin does the same thing to a lesser degree (because you’re paying $40, not $4,000).

WHAT SHOULD YOU MARINATE?

It’s not just about meat. You can (and often should) marinate vegetables, fruit, even certain grains. It’s all about getting the most flavor you can out of the food.

The added depth of flavor can make some foods even more appealing. Maybe your kids don’t like broccoli. Try marinating it in some olive oil, lemon juice, salt, garlic, and Parmesan cheese (grated as needed from a piece of cheese, not the product in the green can), then roasting it. There’s no guarantee your kids will devour it, but at the very least, you will have had them try some darn tasty broccoli!

GIVE IT A LITTLE TIME

Remember that when you’re marinating, time makes a real difference. The minimum something should sit in its marinade to make a significant difference is 30 minutes. Granted, you can marinate for 10 minutes and you’ll get some flavor, but most of what you’re tasting is the marinade that adheres to the outside of the food. You’re not getting the most out of your marinating.

So pick up a Vacu Vin and marinate your food as the very first step in cooking. Place the meat, vegetables or whatever into the Vacu-Vin for at least 15 minutes prior to cooking. The food will still benefit if you can marinate it for longer, but you are looking at a significantly shorter time requirement and a way to get more out of your cooking.

Plus, you can have some fun and play around with it.

 
You can really get some miles from this handy utensil: a time saver, a flavor unlocker and a pretty good deal all around.

The bottom line is this: the more love you give your food, the more love you’ll get out of it.
  

[1] Daikon, a long white radish variety (photo © Umami Information Center).

[2] Low in calories, high in flavor: daikon slaw with crab, black sesame seeds and radish sprouts. Here’s the recipe (photo © Williams Sonoma).

[3] Shredded daikon atop cold soba noodles, along with shredded basil, shredded ginger and sesame seeds (photo © Soba Yamagata).

Daikon (DYE-kon) is a long white Asian radish (there is also a less common black-flesh variety), often found in Chinese, Japanese and Thai cuisines.

If you’ve had sashimi at a Japanese restaurant, the fish is often set against a mound of grated daikon (which is meant to be eaten—it’s delicious and low in calories).

A long, narrow vegetable, daikon ranges in length from 6 to 15 inches and can average 2 to 3 inches in diameter.

The origin of the daikon radish can be traced back to ancient China, but the name derives from two Japanese words: dai (meaning large) and kon (meaning root).

Daikon is crisp and juicy, with a sweet flavor. It lacks the acrid sting of some varieties of round red radishes that are prevalent in the U.S.

Daikon is most often enjoyed raw in salads or as shredded into long, thin threads a garnish. It is cooked in stir-frys and other recipes (see below).

Raw and pickled, daikon multitasks as a condiment.
 
 
DAIKON NUTRITION

Daikon is low in calories: A half-cup has just 15 calories, plus 1 g fiber and 20% of your Daily Value of calcium.
 
 
BUYING & STORING DAIKON

If there’s no daikon in your usual market, check out Asian food stores.

Look for well-formed radishes: smooth, hard, and free of soft spots or sprouts. Refrigerate, unwashed in a plastic bag for up to 10 days.

When you’re ready to cook it, scrub the daikon with a brush under cool running water. Peel before using, or grate with the skin on.

Try these recipes from Melissas.com, purveyor of specialty produce:
 
 
RECIPES WITH DAIKON

What emerged in each episode was food so glorious, many viewers would have given anything just to be able to taste it.

Seven different chefs competed over the run, but during our viewing years, the three stars were Iron Chef Chinese, Chen Kenichi; Iron Chef French, Hiroyuki Sakai; and Iron Chef Japanese, Masaharu Morimoto. Each chef owns a restaurant in Japan (Kenichi a Chinese restaurant, Sakai a French restaurant, Morimoto a Japanese restaurant).

Iron Chef French, Hiroyuki Sakai. Photo courtesy Fuji TV.

The host and comic relief, Takeshi Kaga, was not a real “eccentric millionaire” with a castle and a culinary academy, but a well-known Japanese actor, Shigekatsu Katsuta.

While we loved all the Iron Chefs, we had a special fondness for Chef Sakai, based on the niceness he projected as well as the style of his food. He also has the most wins, and was named “King of Iron Chefs” after winning at the show’s grand finale.

Yesterday, thanks to Benihana restaurant, we met our favorite Iron Chef, who is executive culinary advisor to the restaurant chain. The occasion was an intimate lunch for journalists, and it reminded us how fun a lunch or dinner at Benihana can be.

The meal can also fit into most diets, as each table gets a personal chef who can customize the ingredients on the menu—top-quality beef, chicken, seafood and vegetables—to one’s diet (hold the butter, add the monounsaturated safflower oil). There are no tempting desserts (just ice cream and sorbet) and no bread.

BENIHANA: FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY

Although we spotted a few private rooms used for business lunch meetings, Benihana is a communal experience. Whether your party is large or small (or just you), you sit around the teppanyaki (griddle/flat top) table as your chef prepares your meal: grilling, slicing and flipping until the cooked food is moved from the grill to your plate. Adults and kids alike will be mesmerized.

Benihana was founded in 1964 in New York City by Hiroaki “Rocky” Aoki, an alternate on the 1960 Japanese Olympic Wrestling Team.

Our chef, Carlos, amazed us by flipping a raw egg back and forth on the flat side of a cleaver; then, as a final show, flipping the egg into the air and landing it on the blade edge of the cleaver, breaking the egg in half. Pretty amazing stuff. (The eggs were used in the house’s signature fried rice.)

The meal begins with a delicate Japanese onion soup, followed by a salad with very tasty ginger dressing. The restaurant has added a sushi menu (there’s also a sushi bar), and the sushi we had was delicious.

WE FINALLY GET TO TASTE IRON CHEF FOOD

As much as we enjoyed our seafood entrée, the star of the lunch was a special creation prepared by Chef Sakai: Cercle de St. Jacque. A flat cake of seafood and vegetables—langoustine, live scallop, squid and seafood mousse with lotus root, taro root and chives, bound with a long strip of cucumber, the circle of seafood was garnished with a white miso seafood sauce and black Italian truffles. It’s not yet on the regular Benihana menu, but we’ll be the first to order it if it appears.

Thanks to Benihana, part of our fantasy—the opportunity to taste Chef Sakai’s food—has been realized. If anyone wants to send us to Tokyo to dine at his restaurant, La Rochelle, we can be packed in an hour.

There are 63 Benihana restaurants in the U.S., and several overseas. Check the company website to find the one nearest to you.

The New York City location, on West 56th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, is convenient to City Center, shopping, Central Park and much more.