If your kids want junk food instead of vegetables, give them vegetables packaged like junk food. And proclaim that those veggies are, in fact, junk food.

That’s what the 50-odd carrot growers behind BabyCarrots.com have done. In what is perhaps the best food campaign since “Got Milk?” began in 1993, “Eat ‘Em Like Junk Food,” an ad campaign that begins next week, will hopefully double the $1 billion baby carrot market in two to three years. (We spend a billion dollars on baby carrots?!?!?)

But alas, the ads are breaking in just two markets (Cincinnati and Syracuse), so the rest of us will have to be content with the BabyCarrots.com website. As of today, there’s not much on it except for a hypnotic heavy metal chant “Eat. Baby. Carrots. EXTREME!” It’s begging to be a ring tone.

We’ll check in next week.

No more smiling bunnies: baby carrots are
packaged like junk food. Photo courtesy
BabyCarrots.com.

Black garlic. Photo by Katharine Pollak |
THE NIBBLE.

Now it’s popping up at specialty food stores and is available online. Anyone who delights in new flavors—or who loves garlic—should try it.

• Skordophiles (that’s garlic lovers) may enjoy popping the fermented black garlic cloves directly into their mouths to get an intense wash of garlic, soy, molasses and tamarind flavors.
• Cooks will have fun playing with a flavorful new ingredient.

Learn all about black garlic, including recipes.

Find more of our favorite seasonings and recipes.

Recently, we joined the Pepperidge Farm Recipe Challenge that invites bloggers to test their creativity with puff pastry. The challenge is not only to create an original recipe using Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry, but a dish evocative of our home state, New York (cheesecake? chopped liver? oysters?).

While we’re working on our hopefully-winning recipe for the challenge, you can check out the many delicious savory and sweet puff pastry recipes from Pepperidge Farm.

• Which recipes would you like to make? Let us know your favorites.
• Keep an eye out for THE NIBBLE’s puff pastry recipe, which we’ll post soon.

Creamed Bananas in Puff Pastry Shells is a
Recipe Challenge winner. Here’s the recipe.
Find more recipes at PuffPastry.com. Photo courtesy Pepperidge Farm.