THE NIBBLE BLOG: Products, Recipes & Trends In Specialty Foods


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RECIPE: Guacamole Hors D’Oeuvre

A new way to enjoy guacamole! Photo
courtesy FronteraFiesta.com.

Guacamole is popular party fare. But for a sophisticated cocktail party, you don’t want to dip tortilla chips.

Turn that guac into something special with this recipe from Top Chef Masters winner Rick Bayless, owner of Chicago’s Frontera Grill and Topolobampo restaurants.

RECIPE: CHERRY TOMATOES WITH
PUMPKIN SEED GUACAMOLE

Ingredients
– 30-40 large cherry tomatoes
– 3-4 avocados
– ½ cup Frontera Guacamole Mix (or make your own
guacamole recipe)
– ¼ cup cilantro, chopped
– Salt to taste
– ½ cup pepitas (toasted pumpkin seeds) and/or
crumbled cooked bacon

Preparation
1. Slice the cherry tomatoes in half lengthwise. Gently scoop out the pulp and seeds of each tomato half.
2. Lightly salt the insides of the tomatoes and turn over onto paper towel. Let sit to drain out the liquid.
3. To make the guacamole, cut each avocado in half. Remove the pit and scoop out the flesh from each half. Mash the avocado with a potato masher or fork. Stir in guacamole mix, cilantro and salt to taste.
4. Using a small spoon, fill each tomato half with guacamole. Place on serving tray.
5. Garnish with three pepitas or crumbled bacon. Or, alternate toppings on the tray.Makes 60-80 hors d’oeuvre.

Find more of our favorite hors d’oeuvre recipes and an hors d’oeuvre estimator: how many pieces do you need per guest.

 

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TIP OF THE DAY: Cook With “Mise En Place”

One of the first terms a culinary school student learns is mise en place (meez on plahss)—French for “everything in its place.”

It means that everything needed to prepare and serve a recipe—the prepped ingredients, utensils, pots, pans and plates—is gathered and ready to use before the cooking begins.

This allows the cook to work in a state of constant readiness. There’s no need to stop to get tools, to slice and dice, to find the lid to the pot, etc. It makes cooking a very calm experience.

Use mise en place the next time you follow a recipe.

  • To get you started, here’s a lovely spring recipe: Lamb Loin with Blood Orange Sauce and White Bean Purée.

Using mise en place makes cooking this (or
any) recipe a snap. Photo courtesy of Meat
and Livestock Australia.

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FOOD HOLIDAY: National Salsa Month

Photo by Bluestocking | IST.

May is National Salsa Month, honoring America’s most popular condiment: Since the early 1991, more salsa has been sold than ketchup!

Salsa is the Spanish word for a sauce of finely chopped vegetables, that dates back to the ancient Aztecs. Red salsas are tomato-based, green salsas are tomatillo-based and there are dozens of different types of both.

Fruit salsas, such as cherry, mango, peach and pineapple, are a modern invention, enjoyable with grilled meats and breakfast eggs.

  • See the many different types of salsa in our Salsa Glossary.
  • Learn the history of salsa, which was first taken from a homemade Mexican-American product to a bottled grocery store product by Texan Dave Pace, in 1947.
  • Salsa goes global: Check out spins on salsa, including Indian and Southeast Asian recipe ideas.
  • Two recipes for cooking with salsa: Manicotti and Pork Tacos.

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TIP OF THE DAY: Make Bread Crumbs From Baked Bread Leftovers

Don’t throw away trimmed bread crusts. Save them in the freezer in resealable bags. Then bake them in the oven or toaster oven until dry and toss them into the food processor. Combining different breads just adds to the flavor.

Breadcrumbs are used for much more than breading foods. Use them in stuffing, to garish soups, top casseroles and mac & cheese, thicken stews and stretch ground meat (in meatballs and meatloaf, for example).

Homemade bread crumbs taste so much better than store-bought, as you’ll see with this recipe.

You can use almost any type of bread; but of course, different breads will add different flavors to the crumbs.

You can use stale bread to make breadcrumbs; but take a bite to make sure you won’t get stale bread flavors.

If you do use stale bread, just skip to Step 3.
 
 
RECIPE: HOMEMADE BREAD CRUMBS

 


It’s easy to make homemade bread crumbs in your food processor (photo CCO Public Domain).

 
1. PREHEAT oven to 300°F. Place the bread pieces (or whole slices) on an ungreased baking sheet in a single layer, not touching.

2. BAKE for 10 to 15 minutes; flip halfway through.

3. REMOVE from oven; cool. Pulse into crumbs in a food processor.

4. STORE in an airtight jar

  

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DINING: Springtime Eating From A To Z


Stewed rhubarb, one of our favorite spring treats. Here’s a recipe (photo © Baltic Maid).

 

Have you been taking advantage of the edible joys of spring? Eat seasonally, not just because the products are fresher and less expensive, but because some of them are only available in spring.

  • Veggies: Steam low-calorie artichokes, asparagus, broccoli rabe and Swiss chard. Put marvelous morels, snow peas and sugar snap peas in just about anything. Try nettles (the leaves of a flowering plant with a flavor like robust spinach), ramps and fun fiddlehead ferns. Have some fava beans with a nice Chianti. Zucchini and yellow squash are in season and more reasonably priced. Take a look at spring lettuces such as mâche and mizuna—wonderful flavors! While radishes are available year-round, spring radishes are sweeter. And of course, take advantage of fresh green peas: As much as you may be satisfied with frozen peas, fresh peas are in a class all their own.
  • Herbs: Garlic chives and garlic scapes are a real treat. Garlic chives are immature garlic plants pulled to thin the field; garlic scapes are the flowering stalks of the plant that are cut to promote bulb growth. Both have a mild, garlic flavor and can be snipped into a salad or used in any way that you would use green onion (scallion).
  • Fruit: Blood orange, with a raspberry-orange flavor, and Meyer lemons with sweeter, less acidic juice, are two of our favorite citrus fruits. If you’re not using them, you’re missing out! While tree fruit won’t appear until summer, there are delicious (and low-calorie) strawberries galore. While rhubarb is a vegetable, not a fruit, stewed rhubarb, sweetened with sugar or agave, is one of our favorite spring desserts.
  •  
    Find more of our favorite fruits and vegetables, plus recipes, by pulling down the menu at right.

     

     
      

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