This recipe is from Chef Ingrid Hoffmann, who serves it as a light lunch with just add a salad. You can play with the recipe and substitute other grains.

You can roast a pork loin just for this recipe, or roast one for dinner the day before and make enough extra to use in the fried rice.
 
 
RECIPE: PORK & APRICOT FRIED RICE

Ingredients For 6 Servings
 
For The Rice

 
For The Pork

[2] Dried apricots for the pork fried rice. Have extra apricots? They’re one of our favorite snacks. You can turn them into candy by dipping them halfway in melted chocolate. Set them on wax paper until they dry (Photo by Olha Afanasieva | iStock Photo).

1. MAKE the rice: Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the rice and cook, stirring often, until the rice looks chalky, about 2 minutes. Add the pineapple juice, water, apricots, and salt and bring to a boil. Cook until the liquid is below the surface of the rice and tunnels form in the rice. Reduce the heat to low and cover. Cook until the rice is tender, 15 to 20 minutes.

2. COOK the pork: Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Season the pork with salt and pepper. In batches, add the pork chunks to the skillet and cook, turning occasionally, until lightly browned, about 7 minutes. Transfer to a plate.

3. ADD the garlic, ¼ cup of cilantro, celery, scallions, soy sauce, sherry vinegar, and ginger to the skillet. Stir-fry until the celery is tender, about 3 minutes.

4. RETURN the pork to the skillet. Add the rice and stir-fry until well mixed, 3 to 5 minutes. To serve, sprinkle with the pistachios and the remaining 1/4 cup of cilantro and serve hot.
 
 

[2] Pear, Blue Cheese & Walnut Pizza from 2Teaspoons.com..

[3] Chicken Alfredo Pizza With Walnuts & Gorgonzola from Pillsbury.com.

The restaurant serves both conventional pizzas (arugula, mushrooms, pesto, sausage, etc.); but we can get those elsewhere. Instead, we go for the more unusual selections, such as:

 
This time, we chose a “special” topped with walnuts, goat cheese, and baby spinach.

We loved the toasty, nutty crunch—plus the opportunity to deny the carbs we were consuming by focusing instead on the added nutrition of the walnuts: protein, fiber and different phytonutrients (types of antioxidants).
 
 
INSPIRED BY WALNUT PIZZA!

We then returned to the office to research other approaches to walnut-topped pizza.

We found quite a few pizza recipes that combined walnuts with different cheeses—blue, cheddar, goat, and others—with fruits (apples, pears) and with more conventional pizza toppings (bacon, ham).

So this tip is for home pizza makers: Try some of these ideas for a gourmet Super Bowl experience or for a new take on comfort food.

You can also add some of the ingredients to delivery pizza and frozen pizza.
 
 
TAKE A BITE OF WALNUT PIZZA

So many walnut pizzas, so little time to try them all!

 
 
SUMMER WALNUT PIZZAS

These are summer recipes that require seasonal ingredients such as fresh tomatoes and summer squash (yellow squash, a close relation* of zucchini).

What’s your choice?
 
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*Both zucchini and yellow squash are varieties of the species Cucurbita pepo, which also includes crookneck squash, scalloped squash, straightneck squash, vegetable marrows (no relation to bone marrow, but a name given to the mature fruit (see below), zucchini and cocozelle, a type of zucchini with pale green or yellow stripes. Zucchini and yellow squash are picked from the vine before they are mature, but are tender. If they remain on the vine and grow to maturity, they are larger, drier and tougher—and referred to as marrow.
 
 

CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM.

Chef Ingrid Hoffman created these fun marshmallow snowmen as a project for kids.

All you need:

 
Chef Ingrid stuck the skewers into a piece of styrofoam covered with burlap. You can use half a melon, a stale loaf of bread, or present the skewers on a tray.

Find more of Chef Ingrid’s recipes—serious and fun—at IngridHoffman.com.
 
FONDUE, ANYONE?

These snowmen make great fondue dippers to add to our list of 40 chocolate fondue dippers.

If you want to whip up a batch of chocolate fondue, here are our favorite recipes.

Pisco Portón is an acholado mosto verde
pisco. Its sister brand, La Caravedo, is a
pisco puro, from estate-grown Quebranta
grapes. See the definitions below. Photo
courtesy Pisco Portón.

Peruvians honor their pisco so much there are two annual holidays celebrated nationally: Pisco Sour Day (Día del Pisco Sour), the first Saturday of February; and Pisco Day (Día del Pisco), the fourth Sunday of July.
 
WHAT IS PISCO?

Pisco, a grape-based white spirit, dates from the 16th century. It is Denomination of Origin (D.O.) protected, which means it must be made in Peru, in traditional copper pot stills in small batches.

Pisco was created as an act of rebellion. In 1641, Philip IV, King of Spain imposed heavy taxes on all wine produced in Peru. His Peruvian subjects dodged the tax by distilling the year’s grape harvest in hand-forged copper vats.

A new white spirit was born and christened pisco, after the Port of Pisco from where it was exported. (Pisco means “bird” in the indigenous Quechua language.)

Types Of Pisco

There are three types of pisco:

 
Pisco Portón, marketed as a “super-premium pisco,” is the number-one pisco brand exported to the U.S. It’s the most award-winning pisco in the world.
 
*To make the other two styles of pisco, the fermentation process turns all the sugar content in the grape juice to alcohol. The fermented juice is then distilled. With pisco mosto verde, the juice is distill when there is still sugar present. This results in a product that is velvety and smoother on the palate.

RECIPE: PISCO SOUR

It is believed that the Pisco Sour was invented in at Morris’ Bar in Lima the 1920s by its American owner, Victor Morris. The recipe was perfected by bartender Mario Bruguet, who added the egg whites to create the velvety cocktail we enjoy today.

Here’s Pisco Portón’s recipe for the most popular pisco drink, Pisco Sour.
 
Ingredients Per Drink

 
Preparation

Pisco Sour, the national cocktail of Peru. Photo courtesy Pisco Portón.

2. STRAIN into a glass. Garnish with 3 drops of Angostura bitters.
 
MORE PISCO DRINKS

Here’s a recipe for Pisco Punch. You can find other classic pisco recipes at PiscoPorton.com.
  

Fuyu persimmons can substitute for summer
tomatoes. Top photo by Jirkaejc | IST.
Bottom photo courtesy Good Eggs | San
Francisco.

Eating seasonally, a practice that has always existed in culinary meccas like France and Italy (and existed everywhere by default prior to modern transportation and food technology), is an idea that’s been promulgated for some 40 years in the U.S., first by chef and restaurateur Alice Waters. The the “farm-to-table” movement and subsequent awareness of sustainability and carbon miles continue to underscore the need to change the on-demand desires of American consumers.

 
Seek them out not only as hand fruit, but to substitute in recipes for out-of-season fruits.
 
WINTER SUBSTITUTES FOR SUMMER FRUITS

Some do better when frozen than others, and fruits, frozen at their peak, are an option. But if you want fresh-to-fresh, here are some good substitutes:

Perhaps the most missed fruit or vegetable is the fresh tomato, a staple of salads and sandwiches. Hannah Kaminsky of Bittersweet Blog, residing in the produce capital of America, writes:

“Even in balmy California, farmers market tables once straining under the weight of plump tomatoes and juicy peaches look comparatively sparse, bearing dusty tubers and hearty greens instead.

“I’d never dream of making classic tabbouleh† in winter, when only mealy tomatoes shipped halfway across the globe can be found in markets.”

Her solution: Substitute persimmons for bland imported tomatoes. The recipe is below.

“It makes perfect sense the moment you taste the persimmons in this light salad” Hannah notes. “Their juicy, meaty texture and natural sweetness are an excellent substitution.” She adds even more seasonal produce to the standard tabbouleh recipe:

“Pomegranate arils lend tart, crunchy bursts of flavor. And while parsley could be the sole herbaceous element, I felt compelled to toss in those unloved green carrot tops that are all too often discarded, rather than savored as they should be.”

RECIPE: WINTER TABBOULEH

Ingredients For 4-6 Servings

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE the bulgur, turmeric and vegetable broth in a small saucepan and place over low heat. Stir well and bring to a boil. Cover, turn off the heat, and let stand for 15-20 minutes until all of the liquid has been absorbed. Let cool slightly. Meanwhile…

Eat seasonally: Substitute persimmons for tomatoes in winter salads. Photo by Hannah Kaminsky | Bittersweet Blog.

3. COVER and chill for at least 2 hours before serving to allow the flavors to marry.
 
 
WHAT ARE PERSIMMONS?

In the late 1880s, the first persimmon arrived in the U.S., brought by a naval commander returning to Washington D.C. from Japan.

Here’s more about persimmons, including how to enjoy them at every meal of the day.
 
 
*What is a pimento? Also spelled pimiento (a variation of the Portuguese spelling; pimento is Spanish), the pimento is a heart-shaped variety of Capsicum annuum, the same genus and species as the familiar red bell pepper. Its flesh is sweet, succulent, and more aromatic than that of the red bell pepper. Pimento is what is used to stuff green olives, and is ground into paprika. The standard pimento measures 3 to 4 inches long and 2 to 3 inches wide. Some varieties of pimento are actually hot. In the U.S., they are typically sold pickled, as hot cherry peppers. Don’t confuse pimento with pimenta, which we know as allspice and is also called the Jamaica pepper, and myrtle pepper.

†Classic tabbouleh ingredients are bulgur wheat, parsley, tomato and onion, dressed with olive oil and lemon juice.