Chocolate truffles covered with rose petals.
Photo courtesy VosgesChocolate.com.

Now, you can take a literal bite of it, with the new Le Chocolat en Rose truffle collection from Vosges Haut Chocolat.

The pink Champagne truffles are made from 65% cacao dark chocolate flavored with Piper Heidsieck brut rosé Champagne, then rolled in fragrant rose bud poudre (crushed rose petals). Twelve pieces of Le Chocolat en Rose truffles are $39, 20 pieces are $53, at VosgesChocolate.com.

If you’re not familiar with edible roses, they’re a delicacy used to make jams, sorbets, pastries, confections and other foods throughout the Balkans, India and Iran (or more romantically, Persia). But as those countries don’t have a tradition of chocolate-making, creative American chocolatiers have incorporated rose water and/or rose petals—with delicious results.

We can recommend plenty of beautiful Valentine chocolates without roses, too.

The cucumbers can be puréed and strained, or seeded and finely diced; then mixed with yogurt, herbs, and sometimes, olive oil.

There are variations of tzatziki throughout the Middle East, where the sauce is used as a side dish to meals with meat (another of its many names is tarator). The acidity of the yogurt is a counterpoint to the fat of the meat. Tzatziki is also used to top souvlaki and gyros (in the U.S. tahini, a sesame seed sauce, is more often used with these sandwiches).

The classic yogurt-cucumber spread is a new way for Americans to accent a chicken, turkey, pork, ham or veggie sandwich, or as a side or sauce with the meat. Instead of using whole-milk yogurt tzatziki, it is quite low-calorie when made with fat-free yogurt.

• Click here for a tzatziki recipe. You can be creative with it, adding your favorite herbs (such as mint) and chopped olives.
• There’s also a raita recipe, and an explanation of the differences between tzatziki and raita.

A pork chop with low-calorie yogurt-
cucumber sauce. Photo courtesy National
Pork Board.

Planning a Super Bowl Party? Or have you volunteered to bring a dish to someone else’s?

Jambalaya is fun, filling and easy to make for a crowd.

Jambalaya was created when Spaniards living in the Latin Quarter of New Orleans couldn’t afford saffron, due to the high import costs.

So they created a New World version, which became jambalaya (jamón and jambon are the words for ham in Spanish and French, respectively; “alaya” came from “paella”).

Get a yummy jambalaya recipe as well as a brief history of this popular Creole and Cajun dish.