Call it “Foosball Chip.” Photo courtesy
RubyEtViolette.com.

The “foosball” chocolate chip cookie includes peanuts and Chex mix.

For a two-point conversion, order some of matching Friday Night Foosball ice cream to enjoy with your cookies.

Cookies can be ordered at RubyetViolette.com by noon (ET) on Wednesday for 2nd Day Air shipping, or by noon on Thursday, 2/3 for overnight delivery. Ice cream requires a phone order: 1.718.728.6250.

• Read our review of Ruby et Violette, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week.

• For Valentine’s Day, order Ruby et Violette’s glamorous brownies and Seduction Cookies, also Top Picks of The Week.
• Find reviews of our favorite chocolate chip cookies, plus recipes, in our Gourmet Cookies Section.
• Love chocolate chip cookies? Check out the history—they were invented by accident!

Plastic is not good for mushroom health: There’s no air and the ‘shrooms can’t breathe.

If you’re not going to use them immediately, transfer the mushrooms to a paper bag. We retain the bags from small purchases—deli purchases to greeting cards—for that purpose.

Properly bagged, the mushrooms will stay fresh for up to a week.

See many beautiful mushrooms in our Mushroom Glossary.

And yes, you can rinse mushrooms under water or in a bowl. Just give them a brief bath: enough to loosen dirt but not enough to intake water. Pat dry with a paper towel.

White beech mushrooms: Let ‘em breathe.
Photo by Claire Freierman | THE NIBBLE.

[1] The fruit salad version of Heavenly Hash, wrapped in sour cream (photo © When The Dinner Bell Rings | Blogspot [now closed].

[2] Heavenly Hash fudge, with chocolate chips, mini marshmallows and pecans. Here’s the recipe from Small Town Woman (photo © Small Town Woman).

[3] Heavenly Hash ice cream, with chocolate chips, marshmallow swirl and sliced almonds (photo © Stewarts Shop).

February 2nd is National Heavenly Hash Day. But which heavenly hash?

If someone offers you Heavenly Hash, you may want to clarify:

Is it a fruit salad bound with sour cream or whipped cream, or a chocolate confection or baked good filled with marshmallows and nuts?
 
 
HEAVENLY HASH: THE FRUIT SALAD

The fruit salad version of Heavenly Hash is a traditional Southern dish. It began as a Christmas recipe with red maraschino cherries, green grapes, pecans and other ingredients folded into whipped cream.

Over generations the recipe evolved, with everyone inventing his or her own hash (the term, after all, indicates a jumble or muddle of ingredients).

So today the recipe for heavenly hash essentially requires some kind of fruit—fresh, canned and/or candied—in some kind of creamy white binder.

We prefer sour cream, but have also found, mayonnaise, pudding, whipped cream, even yogurt or cottage cheese and (gasp!) Cool Whip.

Here are just a few of the combinations we perused:

 
We make Heavenly Hash with fresh fruits (strawberries, bananas, pineapple, peaches) and nuts (a mix of pecans, pistachios and walnuts), folded into crème fraîche or slightly sweetened sour cream.

If the whole concept sounds odd to you, know that Heavenly Hash is very much a comfort food to its fans.
 
 
VARIATION: AMBROSIA

Ambrosia is a similar American fruit salad from the South.

While some people use the terms interchangeably, most ambrosia recipes contain coconut and pineapple, mandarin or orange sections, and miniature marshmallows.

As with Heavenly Hash, Ambrosia can also include nuts and maraschino cherries.

We dug up an old Ambrosia recipe from Emeril Lagasse that uses fresh fruits (bananas, berries [3 types], oranges, pineapple), whipped cream and toasted coconut.

And because it’s from a noted chef, there’s a chiffonade fresh mint leaves.

Folks liked the concept of heavenly hash so much—different ingredients in a creamy base—they ported it into other sweets called Heavenly Hash:

 
So enjoy Heavenly Hash Day your style, with one of the ideas above; or freestyle it to create something new.

There’s a better way to do it:

Fill a small plastic bag or even a paper envelope with the peppercorns. Snip off a corner. You’ll be able to better aim the peppercorns into the mill.

• Now that you’ve mastered filling the pepper mill, master all the different types of peppercorns.
• Pepper is not related to bell peppers or hot chile peppers. The term “pepper” was applied to the Chile by New World explorers, who related the hot and spicy flavor of chiles to the peppercorn they knew. Learn more about chile “peppers.”

Keep ‘em in the peppermill, not on the
counter. Photo courtesy SXC.

Want to serve fresh, hot chicken wings at your Super Bowl party?

In this video, the chef demonstrates how easy it is to bake chicken wings and offers options for two different sauces: one based on Peruvian peri-peri sauce, the other on Thai sriracha sauce.

Now, you don’t have to wing it.