The winner will enjoy three special
cheeses each month. Photo
courtesy EatWisconsinCheese.com.
One cheese lover will have several delicious cheeses to enjoy each month when they win this week’s Gourmet Giveaway.
Mandi Foods is giving one lucky winner a three-month subscription to its Cheese Of The Month Club.
Each month, the cheese buyers select three special cheeses for club members. You’ll have the opportunity to enjoy some of the world’s great cheeses—as well as realize what an enjoyable gift the Cheese Of The Month Club is.
Retail Value Of Prize: Approximately $75.00.
To Enter This Gourmet Giveaway: Go to the box at the bottom of our Gourmet Cheese Section and click to enter your email address for the prize drawing. This contest closes on Monday, November 15th at noon, Eastern Time. Good luck!
Even if you don’t win this prize, you can still take advantage of the fabulous cheeses on MandiFoods.com. NIBBLE readers will receive a 20% discount on cheese by entering the word “Nibble” at checkout (through November 30th).
Here’s another way to have fun with salad. It’s charming for everyday meals as well as special occasions.
Build a layered salad in individual juice glasses or goblets. The recipe is easy:
Pick any three salad items that can be cut into a tiny dice and will provide contrasting colors. Think red tomatoes, bell peppers, red onions, radishes; orange carrots and bell peppers; yellow bell peppers and corn; white daikon and cucumber; green celery, green onions and other favorites.
Add a thin layer of snipped fresh herbs: chives, basil, parsley.
Choose a miniature leafy vegetable to garnish the top: baby arugula, shredded basil, microgreens or sprouts, or a chiffonade of radicchio or endive.
Substitute the middle vegetable layer for a dairy layer: Greek yogurt or fresh goat cheese add a crisp white layer and more complex flavors. Or, as the sky’s the limit, add your favorite flavors: a layer of guacamole or a layer of salmon caviar, for example.
Express your creativity with a miniature
layered salad. Photo by Sarsmis | IST.
For dressing, add a layer of pesto or a creamy dressing; or individually dress the diced vegetable layers before filling the glass.
This recipe is so versatile, you can make one every day of the year with different combinations. If your family members don’t like large, leafy salads, it’s a way to get them to eat a little bit of raw veggies. Who knows—they may ask for seconds.
Find more of our favorite salad recipes in our Gourmet Vegetables Section.
The Harvey Wallbanger. Photo by Jay Keaton | Wikimedia.
November 8th is National Harvey Wallbanger Day, a cocktail made with the Italian herbal liqueur Galliano (more formally, Liquore Galliano L’Autentico) plus vodka and orange juice (a Screwdriver with Galliano).
Galliano was created in 1896 and named after an Italian war hero, Giuseppe Galliano.
But what about Harvey Wallbanger?
According to legend, Harvey was a Manhattan Beach surfer who patronized Duke’s Blackwatch Bar on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Donato “Duke” Antone, a world champion mixologist, invented the Harvey Wallbanger in 1952.
As the story goes, after losing a competition, the surfer tried one at the bar and banged into a few walls on his way out. (Duke also created the the Rusty Nail, the White Russian and other popular cocktails.)
Herb butter and Roquefort butter are most often served atop steak; anchovy butter is a classic with grilled seafood. Pecan butter garnishes pancakes in the best restaurants.
Compound butter, or finishing butter, is a compound delight: It makes everything it touches taste better. It can be served in pats or melted into a sauce. They are meant to be decorative: not simply melted butter, but punctuated with seasonings and/or color.
Compound butters are an easy, prepared-in-advance alternative to sauces. Learn all about compound butter in our review of Epicurean Butter, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week. It includes the recipe for making your own compound butters.
Will pie be the cupcake of 2011? Photo
courtesy WildBlueberries.com.
Move over cupcakes: pies are on the way.
Pies, both sweet and savory, will be the top restaurant trend in 2011, predicts restaurant consultant Andrew Freeman & Co.
“If I had one trend—one trend—of the year that I could predict, [it] would be the trend for pie,” said Freeman. “I think that we’re going to make room for pie shops in the next year. This is not just sweet pies, this is savory pies, bite-sized pies. I’ll eat pie if I don’t get this one right….” (Hey, is that a punishment?)
While some restaurants are known for their pies—for example, upscale chicken restos like Pies & Thighs and Hill Country Chicken in New York City—we haven’t seen any pie bakeries yet. But they would be a welcome alternative to the still-mushrooming number of cupcake shops.
