As food writers, we spend most of the day tasting and reviewing products. We do a lot of cooking and baking and explore new ways to use ingredients.
Recently, we joined the Pepperidge Farm Recipe Challenge that invites bloggers to test their creativity with puff pastry. The challenge is not only to create an original recipe using Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry, but a dish evocative of our home state, New York (cheesecake? chopped liver? oysters?).
While we’re working on our hopefully-winning recipe for the challenge, you can check out the many delicious savory and sweet puff pastry recipes from Pepperidge Farm.
Which recipes would you like to make? Let us know your favorites.
Keep an eye out for THE NIBBLE’s puff pastry recipe, which we’ll post soon.
Creamed Bananas in Puff Pastry Shells is a
Recipe Challenge winner. Here’s the recipe.
Find more recipes at PuffPastry.com. Photo courtesy Pepperidge Farm.
Enjoy grilled bread plain or as bruschetta.
Photo courtesy California Asparagus
Commission.
Almost everyone toasts burger and hot dog buns on the grill, but how about regular bread?
You can toast any bread on the grill (it will rejuvenate bread that is no longer fresh, too).
Grilled bread has a lovely smoky flavor and great crunch. It’s a welcome accompaniment to any meal and is very popular with soup and salad. You can also use grilled bread to make bruschetta, crostini or open-faced sandwiches.
1. Crusty bread is most delicious when grilled. Slice the bread (not too thin), drizzle or brush lightly with extra virgin olive oil and place on the grill.
2. When the down side turns toasty on one side, flip it to brown on the other side.
3. Bread will cook pretty quickly, usually within a few minutes. Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t burn. Serve warm from the grill.
Take a look at the different types of bread in our Bread Glossary.
From its dawn, mankind has sought herbs and spices to flavor food and to cure ills. Ancient travelers brought them back from foreign lands. Given the long and treacherous journey, imported spices and herbs were costly, beyond the reach of the common man.
Some spices were often used as currency: 3,000 pounds of peppercorns, the world’s most popular spice, were required to ransom Rome from the Visigoths 410 C.E. (Learn more about pepper.)
But is there a difference between herbs and spices? Actually, yes: It depends upon what part of the plant the seasoning comes from.
Herbs are the leafy parts or petals of plants. Along with basil, cilantro and oregano leaves, tea leaves are also herbs. Herbs can be used fresh or dried and stored.
There is a difference between herbs and
spices. Photo courtesy Allen-Cowley.com.
Spices are derived from the bark, fruit, root, seed or other part of the plant. Saffron, for example, comes from the stigmas of the saffron crocus (Crocus sativus), a beautiful flower. Vanilla is the dried pod of an orchid plant, Vanilla planifolia. Peppercorns are the dried fruit of Piper nigrum, a tropical flowering vine.
Salt, which falls into neither description, is a mineral—sodium chloride.
Most people have difficulty distinguishing between herbs and spices. The American Spice Trade Association describes spices as “any dried plant product used primarily for seasoning purposes.” While this is botanically inaccurate, it does simplify things for most people.
Freeze ‘em while you can. Photo
courtesy BlueberryCouncil.org.
Berries are healthy and low in calories. Strawberries and raspberries are affordable year-round. But blueberries get very pricey out of season (and they aren’t as flavorful, either).
Since blueberries are still affordable, freeze as many pints as you have room for. It’s easy:
1. Rinse berries and place on a baking sheet covered with paper towels. Pat dry with more paper towels.
2. Transfer the baking sheet to the freezer until the berries are completely frozen, about 2 hours. Then transfer to self-sealing plastic freezer bags.
3. If you plan to cook with the berries, seal them in one-cup or two-cup portions. Berries become condensed when thawed, and can’t be measured with accuracy.
4. Consume within a year. Enjoy in smoothies, with cottage cheese and yogurt, with pancakes and waffles or in blueberry ice cream, shortcake and other recipes, long after blueberry season is a distant memory.
You can use the same technique to freeze all types of berries.
What if you’re a person with a love of brownies and a gluten allergy?
A whopping 30% to 40% of Americans are sensitive to gluten. One in 133 of us have the most serious form of gluten intolerance, celiac disease.
Deb’s Farmhouse Kitchen knows the joy a good brownie provides. Her gluten-free chocolate walnut brownie is so well crafted, you wouldn’t guess it’s gluten-free.
For those with a sweet tooth to satisfy, Deb’s also makes a snack-like cherry almond granola and oatmeal granola.
Make someone with a gluten-sensitivity happy; send a box of brownies today.
