For lunch or a light dinner on Valentine’s Day, try this Strawberry Steak Salad.

Sliced fresh strawberries, which look like little red hearts, unite with grilled skirt steak, a spring mix salad, avocado, mascarpone cheese, chopped tomatoes and cucumbers in a blush wine or raspberry vinaigrette.

A lighter dinner gives you more room for desserts and chocolate!

Ellner brut rosé Champagne. Photo
courtesy Pacific-estates.com.

Rosé Champagnes tend to be more expensive than their white counterparts, but are worth it. They’re typically more full-bodied and complex, with rich fruit flavor.

Two bargain sparkling wines that offer a lot of quality for the price are [yellow tail] Bubbles Rosé from Australia (yes, it’s spelled lower case and in brackets) and Martini & Rossi Sparkling Rosé Wine from Italy—both around $10.00. The Martini & Rossi is a bit sweeter and pairs better with desserts and chocolate.

“Pink Champagne” is a gimmicky, average-quality product that is not French. It is colored pink, rather than allowing a natural pink color extraction from red grape skins. Avoid it.

• The different types of Champagne.
• Our favorite rosé sparklers and other special wines for Valentine’s Day.

Looking for a fun Valentine’s Day activity? Have a rosé sparkler tasting. Gather affordable bottles for a tasting. In addition to the [yellow tail] and Martini & Rossi, check out Domaine Sainte Michelle Rosé, Freixenet Cordon Rosado Brut and Korbel Sweet Rosé—all under $13.00. Your retailer may have other affordable rosé sparklers as well.

Making chocolate bark is relatively easy; and nothing shows how much you care more than something you’ve personally made.

While some people melt down chocolate morsels, your bark will be far better served by purchasing top-quality chocolate discs/wafers at a specialty food store. (We use Guittard chocolate wafers.)

• Take a look at this chocolate bark recipe from San Francisco chocolatier Michael Recchiuti.
• Choose from a variety of potential toppers to create your own signature bark.
• The French word for chocolate bark is “mendiant,” or beggar. Find out why.

Make bark for Valentine gifts. Photo
courtesy Recchiuti Confections.

Fun finger food. Photo courtesy Woodhouse
Chocolate.

How about a curried chicken salad wrap with bacon and chocolate (well, not exactly chocolate but cocoa-glazed bacon).

If you still haven’t figured out that fun food item for your Super Bowl party, we propose these mini lettuce wraps.

The finger-food-size appetizers were created by someone who knows his cocoa glaze: John Anderson, co-owner of Napa-based Woodhouse Chocolate, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week.

The bacon, glazed with cocoa powder and brown sugar, is a special treat. Even people who don’t like bacon like it!

• Get the recipe.
• More sandwich recipes.

Over the last 30 years, the Meyer lemon has evolved from an ornamental garden lemon found in California farmers’ markets to a popular commercial lemon.

The two major lemons in America, Eureka, and Lisbon, have a bracing tartness.

The Meyer Lemon, which is a hybrid between a lemon and a mandarin or possibly another sweet orange, has a milder, sweeter juice.

You get both lemon and mandarin notes in the juice flavor profile.

Meyer lemons quickly became the favorite of chefs, who used them in salad dressings, sauces, sorbets, and other recipes. This led to consumer demand.

Meyer lemons are in season from November through March.

The recipe for hummus with Meyer lemons is below.
 
 
MEYER LEMON HISTORY

The Meyer lemon, Citrus × meyeri, was brought to the U.S. by Frank N. Meyer, an explorer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who found it growing as an ornamental plant outside of Peking, China in 1908.

While the orchard trees are six to ten feet high, dwarf varieties are commonly available in China as ornamental plants in garden pots.

By the mid-1940s, the Meyer lemon was widely grown in California. Alas, breeders discovered that a majority of the Meyer lemon trees that were cloned were symptomless carriers of the Citrus tristeza virus, a worldwide scourge.

Subsequently, most of the Meyer lemon trees in the U.S. were destroyed so as not to infect other citrus trees.

A virus-free version was found by a grower in the 1950s and was certified and released in 1975 by the University of California. All Meyer lemon trees propagated in California now derive from that “improved” mother tree.

Around that time, the Meyer lemon was “rediscovered” by Alice Waters and other California Cuisine chefs.

Popularity among consumers got a boost when Martha Stewart began featuring them in her recipes [source].

Learn more about the Meyer and all types of lemons in our Lemon Glossary.

[1] Meyer lemon (photo © Good Eggs).

[2] Dwarf Meyer lemon trees can be grown indoors (photo © Brighter Blooms).

Add some to your Super Bowl hummus and see a big jolt of flavor. This recipe, by Tom Fraker, is courtesy of Melissas.com.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. MIX together the first 4 ingredients in a medium bowl. Transfer to a serving dish and surround with the vegetables.