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


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FOOD HOLIDAY: Chocolate Chip Cookie Tasting

May 15, 2013 at 8:51 am · Filed under Food Holidays


We celebrated with four very different
chocolate chip cookies. Photo by Elvira
Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.		   May 15th is National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, and chocolate chip is America’s favorite cookie. Our friends at Balducci’s specialty food store sent us three different brands of small-producer chocolate chip cookies for the occasion. Added to a bag of Pepperidge Farm cookies already in house, we had quite a chocolate chip cookie tasting.

Gather up a selection and hold your own cookie tasting. Go to the best specialty food store in town and purchase four or five different varieties; call friends and neighbors for a tasting with tea, coffee and/or milk.

If all you‘ve got is a conventional supermarket, that works, too. No matter who makes the cookie, you’re looking for differences in chocolatiness, butteriness, sweetness, texture and other variables (we prefer a cookie with more brown sugar flavor, for example).

Don’t judge a cookie by its wrapper: You don’t know until you take the first bite. We tasted four very different chocolate chip cookies:

 

  • Balducci’s Double Chocolate Chip Cookies. These private label cookies (made by an cookie manufacturer and labeled with the Balducci’s name instead of the manufacturer’s), were O.K. but not standouts. Our favorite double chocolate chip cookie is from Levain Bakery.
  • The Cookie makes a soft, chewy cookie with Maldon sea salt. It has all the right ingredients on the label but doesn’t taste artisanal to us. We missed notes of butter and a lack of brown sugar flavor (which is purely a personal preference). We don’t mean to nitpick, but the extra large, four-inch diameter struck us as overkill, too. From Salt Of The Earth Bakery.
  • Pepperidge Farm Dark Chocolate Cheesecake Cookies. This cookie is the standout in Peppepridge Farm’s new Dessert Shop cookie line (there are also carrot cake and Boston cream pie flavors). A soft style with large chunks of chocolate and cream cheese drops, it adapts the zebra brownie (half brownie, half cheesecake) very nicely.
    		•  
    Pick up an assortment from your specialty food store. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.
     

  • Tate’s Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookie. Surprise: This was our favorite of all four cookies. You wouldn’t know it was gluten free; very thin and crisp, in the style of Tate’s Bake Shop of Southampton, New York, it had us rushing out to buy more.

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    HISTORY OF THE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE

    The chocolate chip cookie was invented by accident in 1937, by an innkeeper who stirred a chopped chocolate bar into cookie batter, thinking it would melt to create chocolate cookies. The happy result was that it didn’t!

    Here’s the full history of the chocolate chip cookie.

    FIND MORE OF OUR FAVORITE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES IN OUR GOURMET COOKIES SECTION.

      

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    TIP OF THE DAY: Green Salad With Beans

    May 15, 2013 at 8:01 am · Filed under Recipes, Rice-Beans-Grains-Seeds, Tip Of The Day, Vegetables-Salads-Herbs


    Romaine, tomatoes and cannellini beans—
    with some leftover pasta as a bonus.
    Photo courtesy Galli Restaurant | New York
    City.    		   Want an easy way to add flavor, fiber, protein and other great nutrition to your diet? Eat more beans: affordable, versatile and toothsome.

    Simply add them to your daily green salad. Toss them with the greens or sprinkle them on top as a garnish. For variety you can hold the lettuce and make a bean, corn and onion salad or an ever-popular three bean salad.

    Beyond the familiar—such as black, cannelini, garbanzo, lima, kidney, navy and pinto beans—there are dozens of varieties waiting to make your acquaintance. Take a look at adzuki beans, anasazi beans, purple runners, scarlet runners, yellow eyes and one of our favorite beauties, Good Mother Stallards.
     
    A vinaigrette works really well with greens and beans. The salad can be as simple as beans, romaine, tomatoes and vinaigrette with some optional shaved Parmesan cheese. You can also use a Caesar dressing (recipe). Snipping in some fresh herbs adds a lilt to the salad (and just about anything).

    FRESH & DRIED BEANS VS. CANNED BEANS

    As with almost every food, fresh (or dried) is better than canned. Not only are the flavor and texture superior, but canned beans are typically packed with a lot of sodium.

    At farmers markets, look for butterbeans, cannellini beans, cranberry beans and others, fresh in the pod. Shell and simmer them in lightly salted water for 30 minutes. They’re a real treat: Fresh beans have a wonderfully creamy texture that will open your eyes to the beauty of beans.

    Look for beautiful heirloom beans from Rancho Gordo and Zursun. Their selections of beautiful beans will make you want to cook them every day. We love giving bags of heirloom beans as gifts.

     
    CHECK OUT THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF BEANS IN OUR BEANS & LEGUMES GLOSSARY.
      

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    PRODUCT: Crunchy Pancakes & Waffles

    May 14, 2013 at 8:07 am · Filed under Breakfast & Brunch

    Bunnery Natural Foods began some four decades ago, in a log cabin near Yellowstone National Park.

    Now in expanded quarters in Jackson, Wyoming, the company continues to focus on foods that provide both strength and satisfaction to the area’s bikers, hikers, fly fishers, mountain climbers, skiers and white water rafters.

    The company’s pancake and waffle mixes are well worth a look for their crunchy surprises and added nutrition. Called O.S.M., the mixes include wheat flour, oats (“O”), cracked wheat, sunflower seeds (“S”), millet (“M”) and bran. The line includes:

  • O.S.M. Pancake & Waffle Mix, the original flavor
  • Coconut-Vanilla Pancake & Waffle Mix
  • Wild Blueberry Pancake & Waffle Mix
  • Double Chocolate Pancake & Waffle Mix
    		•   
    Two healthier pancake choices from Bunnery Natural Foods. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.
    We enjoyed all four varieties, but decided to add a tablespoon of cocoa powder and some mini chocolate chips when we made the second batch of chocolate pancakes. As is, they have slight cocoa flavor.

    Original O.S.M. is $5.95 for an 18-ounce package; the flavors are $6.95. They make delicious party favors, house gifts, teacher gifts and stocking stuffers.

    Buy them online at BunneryNaturalFoods.com.

      

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