Bouquet garni is classically tied with string and enclosed in cheesecloth, for easy removal at the end of the cooking process. The herbs can also be added into a sachet (the type that are also used to fill-your-own tea bags); and you can use a tea ball.

But what if you have no cheesecloth? No sachet? No tea ball?

Use a couple of coffee filters (or just one if the herbs fit). Insert the herbs, tie it closed and add it to the pot.

A bouquet garni is made of particular herbs that accent a recipe. There is no one herb mix: three or four choices are made among a group that typically includes bay leaf, chervil, parsley, sage, savory, rosemary, thyme and tarragon.*

*Did you realize that Simon & Garfunkel were singing about bouquet garni? Here’s the background of the song, Scarborough Fair.

As you cook, enjoy Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits, or at least the MP3 of “Scarborough Fair.”

A bouquet garni of bay leaf, sage and thyme.
Photo © David Monniaux, courtesy Wikimedia.

Make the delicious recipes from Patsy’s
Italian restaurant at home.

Five lucky winners will win the cookbook from the restaurant, to cook the cuisine that Sinatra loved.

Patsy’s Cookbook: Classic Italian Recipes From A New York City Landmark Restaurant, by Salvatore Scognamillo, presents 100 recipes from the classic southern Italian cuisine that’s become American comfort food.

Plan a buffet dinner of Mussels Arreganata, Fettuccine Alfredo, Rigatoni Sorrentino, Chicken Parmigiana, Veal Marsala and Shrimp Scampi, with Tiramisù for dessert.

Directions for the 100 recipes are simple and well adapted to home cooking; the book will please both old and new fans alike.

• To Enter This Gourmet Giveaway: Go to the box at the bottom of our Italian Cookbooks Page and click to enter your email address for the prize drawing. Approximate Retail Value Of Prize: $27.50. This contest closes on Monday, January 17th at noon, Eastern Time. Good luck!

Six lucky winners will each receive a set of four My Little Cupcake molds—guaranteed to become the most popular molds in the house. For a kids’ project, there’s a no-bake cupcake recipe (simply make a dough from cream cheese and ground chocolate sandwich cookies—it’s delish) and push the dough into the mold. There are other recipes as well.

Once popped out of the mold, a lollipop stick can be added (we dipped pretzel sticks in chocolate) and the cupcakes can be decorated with sprinkles, mini chips, etc.

The little cupcakes make charming ice cream toppers. We decorated a whole layer cake with mini cupcakes. Learn more at MyLittleCupcakePop.com.

The mini pink mold on the left produces the
mini cupcakes the right. Photo courtesy My Little Cupcake.

• To Enter This Gourmet Giveaway: Go to the box at the bottom of our Gourmet Cake, Cupcakes & Cake Mix Page and click to enter your email address for the prize drawing. Approximate Retail Value Of Each Prize: $24.00. This contest closes on Monday, January 17th at noon, Eastern Time. Good luck!

Bunn’s sleek new single-serve coffee maker.
Photo courtesy Bunn.

While that counts for just 5.2% of the coffee category, single-cup coffee sales are growing 28 times as fast as the overall coffee market. Keurig, which is owned by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, has a reported 71% of the market, according to Bloomberg.com.

Convenience and taste are the drivers. Everyone in the household can have a fresh cup whenever they want one. And it’s not just a fresh, hot cup of java,* but whichever origin and style they want at that moment—from decaf French roast to vanilla hazelnut.

*Reference to coffee as “java” dates to 1850 and a specific type of coffee, grown on the island of Java and other islands in what is today Indonesia.

In mid-December, we began to test the Bunn My Cafe Home Pod Brewer. Everyone could have the exact kind of coffee he or she wanted; and there was no need to yell “Who wants coffee?” when a fresh pot was made, so as not to let good coffee get baked on the warming plate.

The Bunn was received so well that some testers purchased it as holiday gifts.

While THE NIBBLE has an assortment of coffeemakers (cone filter, drip, French press and vacuum brewers) that enable us to test different types of coffee, we think a Bunn single-serve coffee maker will be joining them soon.

Brush up on your coffee terminology and find recipes in our Gourmet Coffee Section.

Or, you can go glam with grapefruit sorbet, one of our passions.

You don’t even need a sorbet maker. These two recipes are for grapefruit granita—a “crunchy” sorbet.

All you need to do is sweeten fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice to taste, cook it with water until the sugar dissolves (or substitute simple syrup for the sugar), pour the mixture into a pan and put it in the freezer. Then, just break up the ice crystals as they form in the pan, every two hours or so.

• Here’s a more precise recipe for this easy grapefruit granita.
• We prefer this more sophisticated recipe for grapefruit granita with fresh tarragon, a perfect complement to the tart grapefruit. If you’re not a tarragon fan, substitute mint.

Grapefruit and tarragon granita.

• While you can use any type of grapefruit, pink or red grapefruit (Marsh Ruby, Ruby, Rio Red and Star Ruby are examples) enhances the appearance.

The most memorable granita we’ve ever had was at a Michelin two-star restaurant in the south of France. It was appropriately flavored with herbes de Provence—basil, lavender, marjoram (a member of the mint family with citrus and pine notes), rosemary, sage and thyme. No grapefruit juice was used. The recipe was simply water, sweetened and frozen with these heavenly herbs. Try it.

That particular dish of granita was served as a palate cleanser, between the fish course and the meat course. (Palate cleansers are refreshing foods, such as sorbets and beverages, served in-between courses of a meal. They eliminate any lingering flavors on the palate so that the next course may be tasted with a “clean” palate. They are served after fish courses, highly spiced courses and heavily garlicked courses; but you don’t need any excuse other than “it tastes good.”

You can serve grapefruit granita as a palate cleanser; or enjoy it as a light dessert or an after-dinner drink. Pop a scoop into a glass of gin, tequila or vodka. Or do the reverse: Add three tablespoons of gin, tequila or vodka to the granita mixture before freezing.

• Find more of our favorite sorbet and granita recipes.
• Master the differences between granita, sorbet, ice and other frozen desserts in our Ice Cream Glossary.