An immersion blender can take the place
of a hand mixer, upright blender and
food processor. Photo courtesy Waring.

More recently, we replaced the hand-held beater with an immersion blender, our current favorite for many kitchen tasks. It’s compact, easy to store and transport (e.g., to make whipped cream for the dessert you’ve brought to a party) and easy to clean.

The immersion blender was created by a Swiss inventor, Roger Perrinjaquet, who patented it in 1950. It was first used by professional chefs in Europe and was then discovered by chefs worldwide. A home version arrived in the U.S. in the 1980s.

Chefs could easily blend sauces and soups in the pot, without having to transfer the hot contents to an upright blender. We got an IB a year or two ago, after watching chefs use them on cooking shows.

Did we really need another special-use kitchen appliance? No, but the IB does make life easier.

You can buy one for under $30, or chose a deluxe model with wire whisk and chopper attachments (as we did). The deluxe models typically have twice the motor power and more speed options.

While our original intent was to blend soup, we found that our immersion blender could also gracefully take the place of a food processor, upright blender or handheld beater for many tasks. In alphabetical order, they are:

 
IMMERSION BLENDER OPTIONS

While there are numerous products on the market, here are two representing the basic and deluxe models:

 
*The first egg beater was patented in 1870, by Turner Williams of Providence, Rhode Island, who improved upon an earlier design. The first electric mixer was invented by Herbert Johnston in 1908. It was sold by the KitchenAid division of the Hobart Manufacturing Company.

In eight years of reviewing specialty foods, the only pepper jelly lines we’ve liked enough to review are Aloha From Oregon, Cherith Valley and Diane’s Sweet Heat.

And now, there’s Hellfire Pepper Jelly—not a line of pepper jellies, but just one variety in the Jenkins Jellies line. The website can be a bit hyperbolic (e.g. the jelly does not contain “psychotically hot peppers”) but perhaps that’s because one of the company’s owners is related to a famous Hollywood family: actors Blythe Danner and her daughter Gwyneth Paltrow; directors Bruce Paltrow (husband to Blythe) and son Jake Paltrow (among other family members in show biz).

Hillary Danner began making jams and jellies from the bounty of the fruit trees and grape arbor in her Los Angeles backyard. She began to sell her most acclaimed recipe, the hot and spicy Hellfire Pepper Jelly, at farmers markets. Demand exploded, and Danner partnered with Maria Newman and chef Jared Levy to create a line of artisan jams and jellies (we wish we had access to the rest of them!).

Hellfire Pepper Jelly is a very fine example of the genre. The complex flavor comes from a mix of seven different chiles (sorry, we can’t bear to call them “peppers” because of a mistake* made 520 years ago by Christopher Columbus).

Buy it on the company website. A portion of sales goes to the Bruce Paltrow Oral Cancer Fund.

What Is Pepper Jelly?

Pepper jelly is a clear, sweet-and-spicy jelly that contains flecks of hot chile peppers. Different fruits and spices can be added for complexity—for example, pineapple or mango on the sweet side, and tomato or bell pepper on the savory side.

Pepper jelly is often made with jalapeños and serranos, which are medium-heat chiles. Habañero is one step up on the Scoville Scale, and Scotch bonnet is at the top of the scale, categorized as extreme. (See the different types of chiles.)

While on the hotter side, Hellfire Pepper Jelly does not cripple your taste buds. It’s exhilarating rather than searing.

Bring some Hellfire as a host/hostess gift for Halloween, or keep it in mind for teacher gifts, stocking stuffers and other small holiday gifts.

How To Use Pepper Jelly
Pepper jelly is most famously served as an hors d’oeuvre or snack with cream cheese—typically poured over a block of cream cheese on a plate and surrounded with crackers, so guests can help themselves. You can do the work yourself, garnishing individual crackers with cream cheese and jelly for passed hors d’oeuvre. Sweet and tart, hot and spicy, creamy and crunchy: it delivers a spectrum of favorite flavors.

You don’t need to have a party to serve it: We enjoy pepper jelly with peanut butter or cream cheese on whole wheat toast.

But don’t stop there: Here are dozens of uses with everything from omelets and yogurt to meatballs and cheesecake.

 
*Chiles were “discovered” in the Caribbean by Christopher Columbus, who called them “peppers” (pimientos, in Spanish) because of their fiery similarity to the black peppercorns with which he was familiar. However, there is no relationship between the two plants, or between chiles and Szechuan pepper. “Chile pepper” is a misnomer, and the term “pepper” is not used in Latin America. There, the term is chili, from chilli, the word in the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs. More on the history of chiles.
  

Eyeball food is fun Halloween food. These Halloween Eyeball Bites will have everyone eating more veggies, too—a counterbalance to all the candy.

Using favorite veggie slices—cucumbers, carrots and cherry tomatoes, for example—you only need to add cream cheese and olive slices.

For a more sophisticated flavor, substitute fresh goat cheese for cream cheese.

The recipe uses canned sliced black olives, which are very bland—they’re more of a decoration than a food. If olive lovers are eating these, buy some quality pitted olives or pimento-stuffed olives and slice them yourself.

Here’s looking at you—from the plate!