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


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TIP OF THE DAY: Watermelon Martini

It’s watermelon season for just a short while longer, so get out that cocktail shaker for some watermelon drinks! Combine one part vodka (or citrus vodka) to 1-1/2 parts puréed watermelon. Shake the ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass, garnished with a sprig of mint. For a quicker cocktail, we keep diced watermelon cubes in the freezer, then shake them with vodka. You can also try a variation with 1 part vodka and 1/2 part Dekuyper Pucker Watermelon Sweet and Sour Schnapps—handy during the months when fresh watermelon isn’t available (when it is, add crushed fresh fruit to the drink).

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GOURMET GIVEAWAY: B.T. Baking Brownie Gift Box

This week’s Gourmet Giveaway prize is an assorted brownie gift box from, B.T. Baking. Three winners will each receive a gift box with two of each of their brownies:

  • Chocolate Brownie (70% dark chocolate)
  • Peanut Butter Brownie (a chocolate brownie with peanut butter filling and a semi-sweet chocolate topping)
  • Cookie Brownie (a layer of chocolate chip cookie dough baked on top of a brownie).

A NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week, these top-quality brownies are truly moist and fudgy. Check out our review of B.T. Baking brownies

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Enter this week’s Gourmet Giveaway and you
could win a gourmet brownie gift box.

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ENTERTAINING: An Iced Tea Party

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Ku Day Tay’s tea salon in Milpitas, California.
If you’re in the San Francisco area, it’s open
7 days. Schedule a tea tasting, or just pop in for tea and a snack.

If you are lucky enough to be in the San Francisco Bay area, you can escape to Ku Day Ta, a haven of loveliness for tea drinkers (no governments are likely to be overthrown amid the tranquility). Whatever the weather, there’s a comprehensive menu of black, green, herbal, oolong, pu-erh and white artisan teas to enjoy—cold, hot, with milk and spices, blended, or caffeine free.

You could try to create the stunning environment at home with some decorating tricks (we have the red walls, but no six-foot sculpted buddha) and soothing music, and have your own getaway tea and meditation room year-round. But to focus a moment on summer, why not end the season by throwing a memorable iced tea party—all the better if you have a lovely garden to serve it in? Explore local tea shops and online emporia like Adagio.com and Serendipitea.com for flavored teas, or steep your own. See our suggestions for an iced tea party, inspired by Ku Day Ta’s iced tea menu.

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TIP OF THE DAY: Spicy Ketchup

A decade ago, ketchup, with its sweet flavor profile, lost ground to spicy salsa as America’s favorite condiment. If you love the sweet tomato flavor of ketchup but also like the spice of salsa, you can have the best of both worlds with spicy ketchup.

You can buy it easily: Tabasco makes a spicy ketchup, mainstream ketchup makers like Heinz make Jalapeño Ketchup, and there are a number of specialty brands. If you don’t have room on the refrigerator door for one more bottle, it’s easy to make spicy ketchup by adding hot sauce to your regular ketchup.

A more gourmet approach is to add fresh or canned chopped chiles (like jalapeños) to regular ketchup. They provide a nice texture as well as a more complex flavor. You can snip in some fresh herbs for color.

We serve spicy ketchup in ramekins or add it as a plate garnish. It’s great on a burger or fries.

Jalapeno Ketchup

Jalapeño Ketchup photo courtesy Heinz.

 

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RECIPE: Ultra-Rich Vanilla Iced Coffee

On some summer days, it’s just too hot for coffee. Here’s a deluxe iced coffee recipe from entertaining maven Colleen Mullaney, author of how-to books such as It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere and Punch, a book of easy punch recipes, like this iced coffee recipe.

Coffee as punch? Is any liquid served in a punch bowl “punch?” Not exactly, but we’re taking some license here. A brief history of punch:

Punch is a general term that covers a wide assortment of mixed drinks, with or without alcohol. While they generally contain fruit or fruit juice, that isn’t essential. Punch, which seems quintessentially British, actually was discovered in India by the British sailors of the East India Company, and brought to England in the early 17th century; from there it spread to other countries. The word “punch” is adapted from the Hindi panch. In India, panch, earlier called paantsch, was made from five different ingredients: sugar, lemon, water, tea or spices and an alcoholic spirit. The word for “five” in Sanskrit is panchan; derivations of the word exist in the different Indian dialects.

Coffee On The Cubes is one of Colleen’s favorite beverages, a way to serve a festive coffee recipe that keeps it cool for hot days. Move over, iced moccachino: This recipe is super-rich from the cream, but it is unsweetened; guests add their own sugar to taste. See the recipe.

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Keep cool this August with this super-rich iced coffee recipe.

 

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