February is National Pie Month. What do you need to make a pie? A rolling pin*, pie plate, and ingredients. But how about an embossed rolling pin that adds a design to your crust?

Designed by Rotate Rolling, these beautiful rolling pins create a perfectly textured crust for the top of a double-crust pie (including lattice tops).

You can also use your Rotate Rolling Pin—which comes in 16 designs—to create designs on:

 
 
DESIGNS FOR EVERYONE

The designs include:

 
The eco-friendly rolling pins are made from all-natural 100% beech wood, made to last a lifetime. The designs are laser-cut.
 
 
GET YOURS!

For your home, and for gifts for friends who bake, head to RotateRolling.com.
 
 
> The different types of pie.

> The different types of cookies.

> The history of pie.

> The history of cookies.
 
 
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Don’t have a rolling pin? Use a wine bottle!

[1] Roll out a beautiful pie crust with one of 16 designs (all photos © Rotate Rolling).

[2] Cookies embossed with lovely leaves.

[3] Emboss your crust, cookies, fondant, or pasta with birds.

[2] Eleven 20 makes tequila and mezcal.

[3] A classic Margarita (photo © Casa Noble Tequila).

There are plenty of chocolate cocktails to enjoy on Valentine’s Day, but here’s a selection of chocolate cocktails, starting with a S’mores Margarita. The recipe was created by Eleven20, a distiller of both tequila and mezcal.

But first: What is a Margarita?

The original Margarita, created in 1948, combined tequila, Cointreau, and lime juice: an orange-flavored tequila cocktail with a salt rim, served with a lime wheel (here’s the Margarita history).

It became so popular that these years later, the Margarita is always in the list of the Top 10 cocktails in the U.S., often at the top of the list.

Mixologists have played fast and loose with drinks they call “Margarita,” and the following recipe is an example. When is a Margarita not a Margarita? Read our rant on the topic here.
 
 
RECIPE: S’MORES MARGARITA

Using mezcal instead of tequila provides a bit of smoky “campfire” flavor.
 
 
Ingredients

Preparation

1. RIM the glasses. Moisten the rim with a lime wedge, then dip the rim of the glass in the chocolate (about 1/4″) and quickly twist it in a saucer of graham cracker crumbs.
 
2. COMBINE in a shaker the ice, tequila, chocolate liqueur, Grand Marnier, Marshmallow Fluff, and sour mix. Stir the liquid with a bar spoon to loosen up Fluff. Add ice and shake vigorously for 15-20 seconds. There will be small specks of Fluff throughout the cocktail.

3. FILL the rimmed glasses with ice and strain the drink into them.

4. GARNISH with three skewered mini marshmallows. Toast the marshmallows with a kitchen torch or other flame.
 
 
MORE CHOCOLATE COCKTAIL RECIPES

Courtney Adeleye, founder and CEO of Olbali, a global multi-brand company, creates products that improve quality of life.

After many unsuccessful years of searching for coffee that delivered both flavor and strength, Courtney Adeleye decided to blend her own.

She tasted samples from all over the world: Africa, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Vietnam. She then came up with the perfect coffee blends that pleased her palate, delivering bold flavor and robust strength.

She named the brand Cool Coffee Clique™, and branded her flavors as Strong “AF” (i.e., Strong And Flavorful).

The brand currently offers three flavors of coffee, plus flavored teas and hot chocolate. The Cool Coffee Clique flavors, available in K-cups include:

 
Get your coffee on the company website or from Home Shopping Network.
 
 
> The history of coffee.

> The different types of coffee: a glossary.

[1] Double Chocolate Choco-No-Late Coffee is infused with chocolate flavors, but no calories (both photos © Home Shopping Network).

[2] The rose-decorated boxes are another nice touch for Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and wedding showers.

[3] Ghost peppers, a.k.a. bhut jolokia (photo © Sid Wainer & Sons).

Super-fiery ghost peppers are blended with sea salt to create a heat-lover’s seasoning.

The main ingredient is salt. The product is a table salt substitute for those who want to add salt plus heat to their dishes (avocado toast, burgers, fries, pasta, rice [and other grains], wings, etc.)

On its own, the ghost pepper has a Scoville rating of over one million Scoville Heat Units (SHUs). To see how hot that is, check out these comparative SHUs.

The blend is gluten-free and certified kosher by Gesher K.

Get yours at FreshJax.com.

Also available at Amazon.com.
 
 
> The Scoville Scale.

> The different hot chiles.

> The history of salt.

> The different types of salt.
 
 
WHAT IS A GHOST CHILE?

The ghost chile, or ghost pepper, originated in Assam, India, where it is called the bhut jolokia or naga jolokia chile.

This extremely hot member of the habanero family first made waves around 2005 when it was measured at more than a million Scoville Units (SHUs). In February 2007, it entered the Guinness Book Of World Records as the world’s hottest chile. The prior record holder was the red savina, at slightly more than half the SHUs.

Bhut jolokia translates as “ghost chile” in Assamese, presumably because the chile is so hot, you give up the ghost when you eat it. No sane person would want to eat one, but its intense heat concentration could provide an economical seasoning to the packaged food industry.

And, it’s become easier and easier to be “the world’s hottest chile pepper,” because breeders grow seeds to achieve exactly that end.

The ghost chile has since been topped by:

January 9th is National Bean Day, so we’re featuring a bean that Asian cultures use in sweet recipes: The azuki bean (also spelled adzuki, and also called red beans and red mung beans).

The Lady M Red Bean Mille Crêpes Cake, filled with azuki beans, is a luxurious cake for today, the Lunar New Year, or Valentine’s Day.

To make things perfectly authentic, the beans come from Hokkaido, Japan.

The cake, which serves 10-24 people (or one person who likes to eat large slices, several days in a row), is made from azuki beans, the bean used in red bean ice cream, and other Japanese desserts.

Lady M’s classic handmade crêpes are layered with silky whipped red bean pastry cream and topped with a delicate dusting of powdered sugar.

But fear not, today we have a magnificent cake for the gourmet: Lady M’s Red Bean Mille Crêpes Cake

We’ve reviewed other flavors of Lady M Crêpes Cake, one of our favorite cakes.!

Head to Lady M to get yours!
 
 
WHAT ARE AZUKI BEANS

The azuki bean, also spelled azuki bean and aduki bean, and called red bean or red mung bean in English (Vigna angularis), is an annual vine widely cultivated throughout East Asia for its small red* bean.

In East Asian cuisine, the azuki bean is commonly sweetened before eating, often boiled with sugar, producing red bean paste.

It also is common to add flavoring to the bean paste (chestnut is popular).

Red bean paste is used in many Chinese dishes, including ice cream and mooncakes, baozi, and red bean ice. It can be used as a filling or topping for various types of waffles, pastries, baked buns, and biscuits/cookies.

They are also used to make a hot, tea-like drink.

> The different types of beans.

> The history of beans.

> The history of Mille Crêpes Cake.
 
 
AZUKI BEAN HISTORY

Like other types of beans and peas, they are part of the legume family, Fabaceae. Like other family members, they share nutrition and health benefits.

There are at least 60 varieties of adzuki beans, grown in more than 30 countries (the largest producer is China) ‌[source].

The wild ancestor of today’s cultivated azuki bean is believed to be Vigna angularis var. nipponensis, which grows wild across Japan, Korea, China, Nepal, and Bhutan.

The evolution of var. angularis from var. nipponensis, the variety used in the Lady M cake, occurred around 50,000 years ago.

Archaeologists have found evidence of domestication around 3000 B.C.E.

Domestication of azuki beans necessitated a trade-off between yield and seed size. Cultivated azuki beans have fewer but longer pods, fewer but larger seeds, a shorter stature, and also a smaller overall seed yield than wild varieties [source].

There are at least 60 varieties of azuki beans, and they’re grown in more than 30 countries, especially China. ‌

 

[1] A slice of the wonderful Red Bean Mille Crêpes Cake from Lady M (photos #1 and #2 © Lady M).

[2] Red Bean Mille Crêpes Cake.

[3] Azuki beans. There are also white, black, gray, and variously mottled varieties (photo © Kandarian Organic Farms).

[4] Homemade red bean paste. You can purchase it ready-made at Asian grocers and online (photo © Midori | CC-BY-SA-3.0-License).

You can buy dry azuki beans at many Asian supermarkets or other specialty stores. If you’re buying canned azuki beans, check the label to see if they are sweetened/

Like other legumes, azuki beans are healthy substitutes for meat. You can:

 
In Japan, a savory dish of glutinous (sticky) rice and azuki beans is eaten for good luck during occasions on birthdays and for weddings.

Azuki beans are found in many Japanese sweets and desserts, including anpan (filled sweet rolls), jellies, mochi, and pancakes.

In Chinese cuisine, azuki beans, whole or mashed into pastes, are found in mooncakes, tangyuan (rice balls served in a hot broth or syrup), steamed buns, steamed rice dumplings, and sweet soups.