Flat-leaf parsley available from
WhiteflowerFarm.com.

If not, a windowsill or garden pot of parsley will add beauty and convenience to your home.

Flat-leaf Italian parsley is more flavorful than the curly variety, so choose it to flavor your dishes. It also has a more modern sensibility as a garnish (or at least isn’t reminiscent of every curly parsley sprig you had in childhood).

Use it daily to add flavor:

• Snip parsley into scrambled eggs and omelets, into green salads and sandwich fillings, soups, pastas, potato salad, vegetables…and if “parsley potatoes” isn’t in your repertoire, boil new potatoes, toss lightly with butter and lots of fresh-snipped parsley. If you like, add chives or scallions and minced garlic, with salt and pepper to taste. Add it to mashed potatoes and french fries, too.

• The fresh flavor of parsley is a natural with with rice pilaf, risotto and rice salad. It accents just about any protein—beef, fish, lamb, pork or poultry. It accents soups and stews, and is the easiest garnish for just about any food.

If you do buy a bunch of parsley from the supermarket, it will keep for a week or more in the refrigerator if you stand it upright in a glass or plastic container with its roots in water. (This trick works with most herbs.)

Things you may not know about parsley:

• It is part of bouquet garni, a bundle of fresh herbs used to flavor stocks, soups, and sauces.
• It is a principal ingredient in tabbouleh.
• It is part of a persillade is mixture of chopped garlic and chopped parsley (often used in French cuisine).
• It is a component of gremolata, a mixture of parsley, garlic and lemon zest that is a traditional accompaniment to the Italian dishes.

And, as with all herbs, it’s an almost no-calorie way to season your food!

• Irish Coffee Cheesecake
• Green-Chip Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Your favorite rolled cookie recipe with a shamrock cookie cutter and green-and-white icing
• S’mores with green marshmallows
• Silver Moon’s Praline Irish Cream ice cream
• Irish Cream Icing for your favorite brownies or loaf cake: Take 1/3 cup Irish cream liqueur (such as Bailey’s) and 8 ounces of top-quality white chocolate. In a small pan, bring the liqueur to a slow boil; then remove from the heat and whisk in the chopped white chocolate until it’s completely melted and the icing is smooth. Refrigerate until it becomes thick enough to spread, stirring occasionally. Spread the icing over the brownies or cake. Keep refrigerated until 30 minutes before serving.

Find more of our favorite desserts in our Cookies, Cakes & Pastry Section.

Celebrate St. Pat’s with Irish Coffee
cheesecake. Photo courtesy National Honey Board.

Juice with half the calories. Photo by
Jerry Deutsch | THE NIBBLE.

Tropicana has addressed those concerns with Trop50 juice beverages: 50% less sugar and calories. An eight-ounce glass has 50 calories.

We tried two flavors of Trop50: Pineapple Mango and Pomegranate Blueberry.

The juice beverages have a nice, delicate fruit flavor—yes, it’s more dilute flavor than “full test” juice, but a good fruit juice solution for those who have given up this high-calorie, high-sugar, high-carb food.

The products will be welcomed by dieters, carb counters and America’s 20-million-plus diabetics, who have had to give up juice; not to mention parents who are counting their kids’ carbs. While the sugars are still high (11g per eight-ounce glass), Trop50 gives people on sugar quota on the choice to have a glass of juice.

Trop 50 is simple, yet not simple:

Trop50 is certified kosher by OK.

One thing to note: It’s no longer a half gallon (64 ounces) but 59 ounces. Contemplation of the day: How much more can companies shrink gallons, pounds (16 ounces of coffee is now 14 ounces), etc.?

• Find more of our favorite reduced-calorie and sugar-free products in our Diet Nibbles Section.

There are almost 100 species of thyme, which can range in color from deep green to gray and golden-green (look for golden lemon thyme). It’s a very aromatic herb—so much so that it lures honeybees (in ancient Greece, thyme leaves were rubbed over the hives to encourage a honey production, and thyme planted as a ground cover is still used to attract butterflies that pollinate fruit trees).

We all need more thyme—it’s one of the leading culinary herbs.

Thyme’s flavor is more delicate than sage and it can be used with similar dishes: eggs, fish, meats, poultry, fish, vegetables, salads, sauces, soups and stews. Toss sprigs into the water before you cook rice.

Thyme is part of the classic herb blend known as bouquet garni, along with bay leaf and parsley.* Use more thyme and less salt.

English thyme is one of a half dozen
varieties available at WhiteflowerFarm.com.

A cook’s trick: pull the stems through fork tines to easily strip the leaves.

RECIPES WITH THYME

• Creamy Seafood Chowder In Cumin Thyme Broth
• Thai Chicken Salad With Rice & Thyme
• Spring Braise Of Veal En Croute
• Charlie Trotter’s Goat Cheese Ice Cream With Whole Roasted Figs

*There is no set herb combination for bouquet garni: bay leaf, parsley and thyme are most common. But the bouquet—which is bound with string, put in an herb ball/tea ball, cheesecloth or a sachet—varies with the recipe. It can also include basil, chervil, rosemary, tarragon and other herbs.

Drinkin’ o’ the green. Photo courtesy
Agwa de Bolivia.

Start celebrating with a green cocktail. You can make an entire cocktail menu from our green selections:

• With Midori Melon Liqueur
• With Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey (not green in color, but as Irish as it gets)
• A Dublin Delight, with Grey Goose Le Citron
• With Agwa de Bolivia coca-leaf liqueur (it’s emerald green, like Midori)

Finish the evening with Irish Coffee, of course.

Find a larger selection of cocktails in our Cocktails & Spirits Section.

Tomorrow: St. Patrick’s Day desserts!