We’re certain that neither of our grandmothers thought about “protein snacks” or “energy snacks,” and never heard the words ALA, antioxidant, Omega-3. Yet, who knew: All along they were giving us a healthier snack than, let’s say, a dish of Hershey’s Kisses (which we would have preferred back then) or a candy bar.

Three generations later, Planters has recaptured the grandmothers’ snack concept with NUT-rition, a line of different fruit and nut mixes:

• Digestive Health Mix, a higher-fiber mix of pistachios, almonds, cranberries, granola, and cherries
• Energy Mix, a blend of almonds, honey roasted sesame sticks, peanuts, dark chocolate covered soynuts, walnuts, and pecans
• Heart-Healthy Mix, with peanuts, almonds, pecans, pistachios, hazelnuts and walnuts

Nut-rition for a healthier New Year.
Photo by Hannah Kaminsky | THE NIBBLE.

• South Beach Diet Recommended Mix, with almonds, cashews and macadamias
• Almonds and Smoked Almonds, both with 50% less sodium than the regular Planters productsTwo new additions this month include:
• Omega-3 Mix, with ALA-rich walnuts, chocolate-covered soynuts, and dried cranberries
• Antioxidant Mix, perhaps our favorite, with almonds, banana chips, cashews and dried blueberries, cranberries and peachesAre these better for you than a candy bar or a cupcake? Sure. Are they less caloric? Not necessarily. The 1/4-cup servings range from 160 to 190 calories, so are lower than most candy bars and cupcakes. But for us, it’s hard to stick to a smaller portion once the can is opened. There’s no psychological portion control. (Some varieties come in 1.5-ounce portion-controlled tubes.) There are also NUT-rition bars, but in our opinion, the great taste is in the mixes.

  But if you want healthier sweet snacks in the New Year, these mixes are a good start. There’s a $1.00 coupon in today’s newspaper.

  The only lingering question: Why is the name NUT-rition instead of NUT-trition?

If you aren’t going to eat it, regift it!
Photo courtesy SXC.

Food products should be used within 12 months, or they begin to deteriorate—some items like cookies and candy, much sooner.

Many products have expiration dates, but if you don’t like the food to begin with, the dates don’t really matter. It’s better to share the item now, with people who will enjoy it.

Bring the food to your favorite cook, to your co-workers, be a friendly neighbor or donate it to a volunteer enterprise.

Or, call a Christmas White Elephant Party. Invite friends to bring a gift they’d like to trade. Let everyone draw a number from a hat for “picking order,” and choose their new gifts in from other people’s “white elephants.”

• Then, find reviews in our more than 70 categories of specialty foods, and pick something you’d rather have, and treat yourself.

• Take an hour this weekend to go through your pantry and fridge and throw out expired items. Look at dates that are at or near expiration, and put them on the counter to decide to eat them or give them away while they’re still good.

One might ask why the holiday-scheduling powers that be allowed January 2nd to become National Cream Puff Day. Haven’t we just finished six weeks of heavy eating? Don’t we have resolutions to diet in the New Year? Aren’t we running out of gyms?

But, since it is National Cream Puff Day, a few words of puffery:

Cream puffs are made from pâte à choux (pot-ah-shoo), also called choux paste, cream puff paste or puff pastry.

This very versatile dough is used for both sweet and savory pastries.

 
Pâte à choux is made by combining flour, butter, and boiling water, then beating eggs into the mixture until it becomes very sticky and pastelike. During baking, the eggs create irregular domes in the pastry.
 
> Learn how to make pâte à choux.

> Here’s a cream puff recipe from chocolatier Michael Recchiuti.

>There are more cream puff recipes below.

> The year’s 15+ pastry holidays.
 
 
CREAM PUFF HISTORY

Of those two pastries that people consider siblings, the cream puff and the éclair, the cream puff is the elder, dating back to the late 16th century. The elongated éclair did not appear until 200 years later, in the late 18th century.

Originally, the cream puff was filled with whipped cream and served plain (or late, dusted with powdered sugar). Now, the round pastry, which is piped from a bag and baked, is often halved horizontally, as in the photo at right. Profiteroles, cream puffs stuffed with ice cream and topped with chocolate sauce, are a 20th-century dish.

Today, both can be prepared in any way that the pastry chef can conceive, from pistachio whipped cream and glaze to saffron custard with caramel glaze to blueberry jam with cassis whipped cream and cassis glaze. Some cream puffs have chocolate-glazed tops, similar to the éclair.

So: Who invented them? We don’t know exactly, but we do know who invented the pastry portion.

The story most often told, likely apocryphal, is that they were invented by Panterelli, the head chef of a contingent brought to France by Catherine de’ Medici of Italy (1519-1589), when she married King Henry II in 1533.

The story told is that Panterelli accidentally created the cream puff in 1540 by adding too much flour to a pastry dough. He baked the dough anyway and filled the resulting puff with whipped cream and pastry cream.

Whether it was by such an accident or by regular talent, Panterelli did develop a hot dough†, called pâté a Panterelli, to make gateaux (rich cakes) and pastries.

Also known as choux pastry, the dough was initially irregular in shape, which earned it the name—choux (shoo) is the French word for cabbage.

Other chefs built on his creation to develop cream puffs, éclairs, and profiteroles.

Each country put its own spin on the cream puff. In France, it’s known as choux à la crème; in the U.K. it’s called cream puffs, and in Italy it’s called bigne.

About dating the arrival of the cream puff: There is documentation from the 1800s that cream puffs became a popular dessert and tea-time pastry in France and England.

Cream puffs also became popular in the U.S. in the mid-1800s. They were first documented on the menu in 1851 at the Revere House Restaurant in Boston.

Adding to the French invention, a Boston cream puff tops the pastry with chocolate glaze (photo #5, below).

In addition to the whipped cream/pastry cream, you can fill cream puffs with:

 
 
CREAM PUFF RECIPES

 
Plus

[2] There are also savory cream puffs, like this one of mozzarella and porcini mushrooms in choux paste (photo © Balsamic Vinegar of Modena The Original).

[3] How about salted caramel (photo © Sailor Restaurant | Brooklyn, New York).

[4] You can add fruit to the cream layer. Here, spiced peaches (photo © Taste Of Home).

[5] You can also add a layer of smashed berries or preserves (photo © Oregon Raspberry & Blackberry Commission).

[6] Cream puffs can be savory, too. These are crème fraîche and caviar. You can also use goat cheese and chopped chives, or flavored goat cheese (Abacus Photo).

________________
 
*Cream puffs are filled with whipped cream or pastry cream. Profiteroles can be filled with anything, savory or sweet filling. In the U.S. profiteroles are popularly filled with ice cream and topped with chocolate sauce.

†Hot dough refers to a dough made by mixing flour with very hot water, creating a paste.
 
 

CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM.

Start the new year with a new Bloody
Mary recipe. Photo © S. Mario | Fotolia.

The world is full of them:

• Bloody Mary variations without tomato juice: Bloody Bull, Bloody Eight Ball, Bloody Mariner and even the Bloody LeRoy, which replaces the tomato juice with barbecue juice (in case you have some barbecue in the fridge to go with it).
• Latin-inspired Bloody Marys: Bloody Maria and Chipotle Maria
• International Bloody Marys that replace vodka with the local favorite: Danish Mary, Highland Mary, Russian Mary and more.

As cocktails go, the Bloody Mary, with vodka, tomato juice, citrus juice, seasonings, and a celery stick, is as healthy as it gets. If your New Year’s Resolutions include dieting, switch that sugar-laden Appletini, Cosmo, Mojito or Margarita for the Mary of your choice (well, maybe not the Bloody LeRoy).

• Get all of the Bloody Mary recipes above.

You become a butcher! “Julie And Julia: My Year Of Cooking Dangerously” author Julie Powell has released her next book, “Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession”, her “Julie and Julia” marriage gone awry “set against a backdrop of butchery.”

Most of “Cleaving” was written while Powell was an apprentice at Fleisher’s, a grass-fed and organic meat butcher shop in Kingston, New York. We haven’t read the book, but a colleague who did passes on her wishes for “more food and less sex—does anybody care about Julie Powell’s sex life?” (Yes: People who buy books to make into films will probably like it just the way it is.)

Fleisher’s has launched a formal butchery apprentice program that has already graduated three successful butchers. If your New Year’s plans include training in the culinary arts, learn more about Fleisher’s butcher classes.

As the Fleisher’s folks say, Carne diem!

• Learn your cuts of beef and cuts of lamb in our two popular meat glossaries.

This could be you, learning the craft (and
trade) of fine butchering. Photo courtesy Fleisher’s.