THE NIBBLE BLOG: Products, Recipes & Trends In Specialty Foods


Also visit our main website, TheNibble.com.





VALENTINE’S DAY: Chocolate Tequila Cupid Cocktail

Let chocolate and tequila be your cupid.
Photo courtesy Sauza Tequila.

  If you’re not sharing the evening with someone special, make yourself a special comfort cocktail.

Sauza Tequila suggests this chocolate tequila drink.

CHOCOLATE TEQUILA CUPID RECIPE

Ingredients

  • 3 parts chocolate milk (store bought or homemade)
  • 1 part silver tequila
  • 1 part strawberry purée or daiquiri mix
  • Garnish: Chocolate-covered strawberry
  • Optional garnish: chocolate syrup
  • Optional garnish: chocolate shavings
     
    Preparation
    1. Combine chilled chocolate milk, tequila and strawberry purée in a mixing glass. Stir vigorously to combine.
    2. Line your favorite glass with chocolate syrup (squirt it on the inside of the glass in an up-and-down pattern).
  • 3. Pour cocktail into the glass.
    4. Garnish with a chocolate covered strawberry.
    5. Enjoy it: You deserve it!

    Recipe for chocolate-covered strawberries.

    Comments off

    VALENTINE’S DAY: Champagne Cocktail

    Rosy and delicious: the Secret Crush
    Champagne cocktail. Photo courtesy
    Macao Trading Co.

      Here’s a Valentine’s Day version of a Champagne Cocktail.

    Called a Secret Crush, it’s a rosy color from the addition of grenadine—a red syrup originally made from pomegranate juice or cherry juice, and sugar. (Grenade is the French word for pomegranate as well as grenade.)

    Today, supermarket brands are made of artificial ingredients; but you can find authentic artisan brands:

    Stirrings Authentic Grenadine, made with pomegranate juice, is all-natural as well as far more flavorful than the red-colored corn syrup. Monin also makes an all-natural grenadine. Natural brands also include spices, such as cardamom and clove.

    Or, make homemade grenadine.

    You can make this cocktail with Champagne or Prosecco, a sparking wine from Italy that’s lighter and more affordable.
    Thanks to New York City’s restaurant hot spot Macao Trading Co. for the recipe.

     

    SECRET CRUSH

    Ingredients Per Cocktail

  • 5 ounces Prosecco
  • 3/4 ounce grenadine
  • 1 brown sugar cube
  • 4 to 5 dashes Angostura bitters
  • 1 lemon twist
     
    Preparation
    1. Pour half of the amount of the sparkling wine into the Champagne flute.
    2. Place the sugar cube on a bar spoon and saturate it with Angostura bitters.
    3. Carefully place the bitters-saturated sugar cube into the flute. Let rest for a moment.
    4. Add grenadine. Top off with the rest of the sparkling wine.
    5. Twist the lemon twist over the drink and discard.

    Bitters, by the way, are a strongly-flavored distillation or infusion of aromatic herbs, bark, fruit and/or roots. The term derives from the fact that the recipe contains no sweetener. While artisan brands contain a blend of flavors—angostura bark, cascarilla, cassia, gentian, orange peel and quinine, for example—the best-known commercial brand, Angostura, is made primarily from the roof of gentian, a flower. If you have artisan bitters, substitute them for the Angostura brand specified in the recipe.

      

  • Comments off

    TIP OF THE DAY: Wine With Chocolate & Dessert

    What wine or other alcoholic libation goes with chocolate?

    That depends: Is it bittersweet, milk chocolate, fruit-filled, mint-filled, with nuts and so forth.

    Check out our Chocolate And Wine Pairings chart.

    What if you’re having cheesecake, chocolate cake, tiramisu or other favorite dessert?

    That requires new options entirely!

    See our Wine And Dessert Pairings chart.

    All of us at THE NIBBLE wish you

    A SWEET & HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY.

     

    What wine goes with chocolates or chocolate
    cake? It’s not a simple question, but we’ve
    got the answers. Photo courtesy Tellurlide
    Truffle
    .

    Comments off

    PRODUCT: BitterSweets Curmudgeonly Conversation Hearts

    The BitterSweets Dysfunctional Collection.
    Photo courtesy Despair.com.

    Forget those happy Valentine candy hearts—called Sweetheart Conversation Hearts—with their positive messages: Love You, Be Mine and so on.

    Despair.com has candy hearts for those who are not in the Valentine spirit.

    Choose from three different collections of BitterSweets: Dejected, Dumped and Dysfunctional.

    Each box contains 37 brutal kissoffs. The Dumped collection, for example, offers U LEFT SEATUP, BACK 2 KENNEL, I GOT SOBER, CELIB8 THX2U and CALL A 900#.

    Six ounces in a heart-shaped tin is $9.95.

    SWEETHEARTS HISTORYSweethearts Conversation Hearts, those ubiquitous pastel sugar losenges, have been made by the New England Confectionery Company (NECCO), since the Civil War. The company manufactures more than 8 billion hearts annually.The first versions were made in the shape of a cockle shell. Mottoes printed on thin colored paper were rolled up inside. Sometime in the 1860s, the company devised a machine with a die that printed the words on the lozenge paste. The present design dates to 1902.

    Messages included All Mine, Angel, Let’s Kiss, Love, Lover Boy, My Baby and Sweet Talk, among others. Beginning in the early 1990s, the sayings were updated annually. “Call Me” became “Fax Me.” (Hey, what about Text Me?)

    The line now includes chocolate, Spanish and sugar-free versions.

     

    Comments off

    TIP OF THE: Easy Valentine Cake

    You don’t need the time or rose-piping skills to make a special cake for Valentine’s Day.

    Start with a plain iced cake from your favorite bakery, and add your own touches.

    First, remove any plastic rose or other mundane decoration that may come with the cake. Then, depending on what treats your sweetie or family prefer, consider:

    • Crushed red and white peppermints
    • Red, pink and white Jelly Belly jelly beans mix, M&Ms mix, gum drops
    • Small chocolate hearts or white chocolate hearts
    • Fresh raspberries or whole or sliced strawberries
    • Small strawberries half-dipped in melted chocolate
    • Rose petals (wash to remove pesticides or buy organic flowers)
    • Anything that appeals to you in the candy store

    Buy an iced chocolate cake—a round
    cake is just fine—and top with chocolate
    truffles and/or malted milk balls. Photo
    courtesy Wilton.com, which has lots of cake ideas.

    Consider edging the top rim of the cake with one type of garnish and placing a large item in the center: a larger chocolate or chocolate marshmallow heart, an entire blossom or a trio of large strawberries, for example.

    Comments off

    The Nibble Webzine Of Food Adventures
    RSS
    Follow by Email


    © Copyright 2005-2024 Lifestyle Direct, Inc. All rights reserved. All images are copyrighted to their respective owners.