You can juice up for one-fourth the calories and carbs by turning your juice drink into a sparkling juice “spritzer”:
Just fill the glass 1/4 full with fruit juice and top off with club soda or seltzer. You also can:
Mix the recipe by using 1/2 juice and 1/2 club soda if you want more juice flavor.
Use flavored club soda to add more flavor to the drink.
Add a garnish of fresh fruit—lemon or lime is fine for a squeeze of citrus flavor; apple, peach or other favorite fruit provides a mini snack. A sprig of mint is another option.
“Spritzer,” by the way, comes from the German “spritzen,” to squirt or spray. Americans adapted the word around 1915-1920 to refer to adding sparkling water to give carbonation to a beverage. A wine spritzer adds club soda to wine.
Add some spritz and a wedge to your fruit
juice. Photo by Torsten Schon | IST.
Fizzy Lizzy began with founder Liz Morrill’s love for spritzers. At the time, there were no fizzy juices on the market, so she started a line. If you don’t want to make your own juice spritzer, try Fizzy Lizzy, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week.
Make pasta with pesto to celebrate
Columbus Day. Photo by Shyman | IST.
Most people don’t think of Columbus Day as an eating holiday, like Thanksgiving or Easter.
Yet, Columbus Day begs for an Italian dinner.
Christopher Columbus (1451 – 1506), an explorer from the Republic of Genoa in northwestern Italy, voyaged four times to begin a colony on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. This initiated the first widespread contact between Europeans and indigenous Americans and was the beginning of European exploration and colonization of the Americas. (The term “pre-Columbian” refers to the peoples and cultures of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and successive Europeans.)
Perhaps Spanish food should be enjoyed today as well, since Columbus’ voyages were financed by Queen Isabella of Castille, and Columbus Day is celebrated in that country as well as throughout the Americas (except for Canada).
So choose Spanish cuisine if you like; we’re planning an Italian dinner tonight—most appropriately, pasta with pesto.
Why make pesto? Liguria, the region of Italy that is home to capital city Genoa and the birthplace of Columbus, grows superb basil; the making of pesto began there. Learn the history of pesto.
October 10, 2010 at 8:00 am
· Filed under Beverages
Yesterday we discussed what it takes to brew a great cup of coffee. Today, we focus on a great cup of tea.
A cup of fine tea is so delicious, it requires no milk or sugar—like a cup of delicious black coffee. Milk and sweeteners are used to give a more pleasing flavor to bland, bitter or otherwise unattractive tea flavors.
So spend more and start with good tea. While the price per pound may seem high, no home needs that much tea. You can start with a few ounces.
While all tea comes from the same plant, Camellia sinensis, the terroir (microclimate, soil, etc.) and how the tea is finished after plucking creates many hundreds of different flavors (think of how varied “red wine” is).
Fancy packaging and silken tea bags are no guarantee of the finest tea. Look for a store or tea salon that sells loose tea and learn to use a tea ball or a other infuser. Our favorite is the Ingenuitea, a small plastic pot that infuses the loose tea and then is placed atop a cup or mug to release the brewed tea, straining out the leaves. We also like Bodum’s YoYo Personal Tea Set with a built-in removable strainer in a double-wall glass mug (no coasters required) and lid to keep the heat in.
Photo by Sara Sang | IST.
When choosing teas to try, consider this “system”:
Choose hearty teas for breakfast. Assam, Ceylon, Earl Grey, English Breakfast and Irish Breakfast are examples.
Go lighter for afternoon tea. Try Chinese blends, such as Darjeeling.
Stay light for after-dinner tea. Decaffeinated tea or caffeine-free herbal teas (chamomile, hibisucus, rooibos and rosehip, for example) won’t keep you awake.
Store tea in an airtight container away from light, moisture and aromas that can alter its delicate flavor. Green and white teas can be refrigerated for freshness, but don’t “store” tea. Buy only what you’ll consume in a month or two.
Our favorite 2010 Chex Party Mix combines peanut butter candy pieces and white chocolate. Photo courtesy General Mills.
Each year Chex cereal holds a Party Mix recipe contest. Five finalists are chosen from 1,000 or more entries, and are posted on ChexRecipeContest.com so that Chex Party Mix lovers can try them and vote for a winner.
Your participation in voting will help the hungry as well. The 2010 contest kicked off with a $25,000 donation to Feeding America. For every online vote, Chex will make an additional $2.00 donation, up to an additional $25,000.
Our favorite of the five finalists was developed by Eliza E. of Manchester, New Hampshire. Thanks, Eliza!
The crunchy peanut butter and white chocolate mix disappeared in the blink of an eye. We had to make more to enjoy on top of ice cream!
The yellow and red Reese’s Pieces we used make a great Halloween snack as well (you can add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of candy corn).
CHEX PB & CHOCOLATE BLAST
Ingredients
6 cups Rice Chex cereal
1 cup white vanilla baking chips (6-ounce package)
1 cup peanut butter chips
1 cup candy-coated peanut butter candies (e.g. Reese’s Pieces)
1 cup dry-roasted peanuts
Preparation
1. LINE two cookie sheets with foil or waxed paper. Place 3 cups Rice Chex in a large bowl.
2. MELT white vanilla baking chips uncovered in a small microwavable bowl on High about 1 minute or until chips can be stirred smooth. Pour melted chips over cereal in bowl; stir to evenly coat.
3. SPREAD mixture in single layer on one of the cookie sheets. Refrigerate 5 minutes or until set.
4. REPEAT the above using the remaining cereal and the peanut butter chips; refrigerate 5 minutes or until set.
5. GENTLY BREAK up coated cereal into large bowl. Add peanut butter candies and peanuts; stir gently to combine. Store in an airtight container.
Makes 22 half-cup servings. You can vary the recipe using different flavored chips and/or candy-coated pieces.
The other finalist recipes include Backyard BBQ Chex Mix, Chex Cajun Kick, Chex Honey Nut Cherry Crunch and Chocolate Coffee Toffee Chex Mix.
October 9, 2010 at 8:00 am
· Filed under Beverages
The secret to brewing the best coffee starts with fresh-roasted beans. But water and brewing method come into play as well.
Two generations ago people purchased “coffee” at the grocery store; one generation ago brands proliferated at the supermarket as people debated preferences for Chock Full O Nuts, Eight O’Clock Coffee, Maxwell House and other brands.
In 1959, the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia upped the ante, convincing millions of Americans that coffee from Colombia was the best. It created the character of coffee grower Juan Valdez, a fictional coffee grower. Television and print ads explained how Juan worked hard all year to grow coffee good enough to be selected by the export agent “El Exigente” (The Demanding One). [Factoid: Carlos Montalbán, brother of actor Ricardo Montalbán, portrayed El Exigente.]
Today, we’re asked to go beyond country choices (Costa Rica, for example), to the regional choices (the Terrazu area of Costa Rica), and even the particular estate where it is grown (such as La Minita).
It’s a long road to produce a good cup of
coffee. Photo by Joan Vincent | IST.
But while country, region and estate do provide coffees with specific flavors, they are relatively meaningless in terms of the quality of the final brewed coffee. How the beans are handled after they’re harvested makes the difference. You can prepare a bad cup of coffee with beans from a top estate.
The water-to-coffee ratio, appropriate grind, proper brewing equipment, method of brewing and filtration are all important.
So what do you need to know?
Get to know the good roasters in your area (ask at specialty coffee shops). You want beans that are roasted and immediately delivered to retailers.
Grinding the beans right before brewing doesn’t make the coffee better, unless the beans are freshly-roasted. Don’t buy more coffee than you’ll use in a week: The best coffee isn’t made from beans roasted a month ago. Even if you have the beans only a brief time, they must be protected from moisture, light and air in airtight containers.
Good-quality beans demand good-quality water: Water comprises 98% of a cup of coffee. If the water from your tap has chemical flavors, install a water filter.
Spend extra for a good brewing machine. Read reviews. There are plenty of them online.
