Here’s some food fun that makes better-for-you “nachos.” Replace replace the salt-and-refined-carb tortilla chips with slices of grilled zucchini. The recipe is courtesy The Pampered Chef.

RECIPE: ZUCCHINI NACHOS

Ingredients

 
Optional Toppings

Preparation

1. HEAT a grill to medium for 3 to 5 minutes. Cut the zucchini into ¼”-thick rounds, ideally using a crinkle cutter.

2. TOSS the zucchini in a bowl with enough oil to moisten, plus salt and pepper to taste. Place zucchini in a single layer in a grill pan or directly on the grill. Cook 4 to 6 minutes, turning once, until tender.

3. SPRINKLE with ½-cup shredded cheese and cook until the cheese is melted, about one minute.

4. ARRANGE nachos on a platter and add toppings: half (or more) of the black beans, chopped tomato and other favorite toppings. Squeeze with lime juice and serve immediately.
  

So for all of us making our first cup at home—from ground beans, not K-Cups—here are some helpful tips from Melitta Coffee:

1. Buy coffee weekly. Once coffee is ground or the vacuum can is opened, coffee begins to grow stale in about 24 hours. To slow this process, store coffee in an airtight container in a cool, dry, dark place. We use this Friis Coffee Vault.

2. Don’t refrigerate or freeze the coffee. It will acquire moisture unless it’s stored in a moisture-proof and airtight container (like the Friis). While some “tips” say that you can freeze beans in airtight containers, the results won’t be glorious when you defrost them. Freezing coagulates the natural oils in the beans and crystallizes the moisture inside them, which adversely affects the flavor and aroma. In espresso, those oils need to emulsify to produce the body and mouthfeel of the coffee. So don’t be tempted buy jumbo-size bargains in coffee, unless you’re going to use it up quickly.

Have an extra cup today to celebrate National Coffee Day. Photo courtesy Derby Pie.

4. Use paper filters to effectively trap bitter sediments. Cone shaped paper filters allow for full saturation of the grounds, but all good, quality paper will ultimately enhance the final cup more than gold or other metal filters.

5. Drink coffee as soon as possible after brewing. If left on a burner, the coffee will continue to cook and starts to degrade in as little as 20 minutes.

Another way to celebrate National Coffee Day is with a coffee or mocha dessert. Consider affogato, brownies, candy (we love these hard coffee candies), coffee ice cream, milkshake, mousse, panna cotta and tiramisu. Here’s a recipe collection from Folger’s.

From Melitta, here’s a recipe for easy mocha truffles.

RECIPE: MOCHA TRUFFLES

Ingredients For Approximately 50 Truffles

 
Preparation

1. CREAM butter and sugar thoroughly and add melted chocolate. Add coffee and rum; mix well. Chill for 3 to 4 hours, until mixture is firm enough to handle.

2. DROP mixture by small teaspoonfuls and form into balls. Roll each in crumbs until well coated. Chill for at least 2 hours before serving. Store in refrigerator, tightly covered.

For starters, about 83% of adults drink coffee in the U.S., the world’s largest consumer of coffee, up from 78% a year earlier, according to the National Coffee Association’s 2013 online survey. That’s an average of three cups a day per person, or 587 million cups.

Who’s Drinking Coffee & When

Thirty-five percent of Americans drink their coffee black. Photo courtesy Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

How Americans Drink It

 
What Do We Pay For Our Coffee?

Find more statistics on StatisticBrain.com.
  

September 28th is Drink Beer Day. Only a few ingredients are needed to make beer; typically, barley malt, unmalted grain, hops, yeast and water.

We were explaining to a friend that our favorite beers are heavily hopped IPAs. “What exactly are hops?” he asked.

We turned to Samuel Adams, the pioneering craft beer brewer, and to USA Hops, a nonprofit organization of growers, for an education.

A hop is a flower that looks like a soft, green pine cone. It grows on a long vine. The flowers are almost exclusively used as a brewing spice in the production of beer.

But what’s important to the brewer is not the whole flower or the petals, but the lupulin glands inside, which contain a golden resin. This resin is the depository of the alpha acids necessary for the hops to impart their signature bitterness and flavor to the beer. It also acts as a natural preservative.

Like any agricultural product, the unique conditions of soil, moisture, elevation and sunlight of the particular field have a direct impact on the quality and character of the hops. Hop varieties grown in their original regions will impart different flavors when grown elsewhere. The “hop belt,” where the most flavorful hops thrive, falls along the 48th parallel.

Each region’s hop varieties impart different flavors, from the aromatic piney notes in German hops to earthy ale hops in England and the citrus brightness of American hops.

SOME HOPS HISTORY

The oldest hop growing region in the world is located in Bavaria, a temperate region in southeast Germany, just west of the Alps (Munich is the capital). The local Noble aroma hops varieties, low in bitterness and high in aroma, are prized worldwide.

The earliest beers weren’t made with hops. The earliest mention of hop growing dates only to 1000-1200 C.E. in Germany. Prior to hops, other bittering agents, from juniper to roots and pine, were used. None could create the layers of flavor that hops impart, and it was a lucky day when the first brewer tossed those green flowers into the brewing vat.
  

[2] This beauty is a no-bake strawberry cream pie. Here’s the recipe (photo © Wife Mama Foodie).

[3] How about a strawberry and chocolate cream pie? Here’s the recipe (photo © Food 52).

[4] We’ve never had a roasted strawberries. In this pie, the strawberries are roasted in the oven. Here’s the recipe (photo © Delicious Australia).

[5] Beyond cream pie: a strawberry shortcake made with a pound cake loaf. Here’s the recipe (photo © The Baker Chick).

[6] Boozy strawberry shortcake with Baileys Irish Cream. Here’s the recipe (photo © Baileys).

[7] Strawberry ice pops in rosé wine. Here’s the recipe (photo © California Strawberries).

[8] Beyond the biscuit: a strawberry shortcake layer cake (photo © Japan Recipe Tin Eats).

[9] Pork tenderloin with balsamic strawberries. Here’s the recipe (photo © Southern Living).

[10] Souffle omelet with balsamic strawberries. Here’s the recipe (photo © California Strawberries).

A cream pie is a plain pastry or crumb pastry shell with a pudding or pudding-like filling.

Butterscotch, chocolate, frangipane and vanilla are most common, as are banana cream pie, coconut cream pie, strawberry or raspberry cream pie.

What’s the difference between cream pie and creme pie?

Just the spelling.

Creme is an Americanization of the French word for cream, crème (pronounced KREHM), most likely adapted in the U.S. to make the dish sound more special.

But why mispronounce another language’s word for cream? Unless it’s a French recipe, such as Coeur à la Crème, stick to “cream.”

And celebrate the day by making this delicious strawberry cream pie recipe, courtesy of the California Milk Advisory Board.

You can substitute your berry of choice: blackberry, blueberry, raspberry, etc.

There are more than 70 additional strawberry recipes below—beverages, desserts, sweet snacks and savory foods.

> The year’s 12 strawberry holidays.

> The year’s 31 pie holidays.

> The different types of pie: a photo glossary.

> The history of strawberries.

> The history of pie.
 
 
RECIPE: STRAWBERRY CREAM PIE

Ingredients For 8 Servings

For The Crust

 
For The Filling

 
Preparation

1. PREHEAT the oven to 350°F.

2. MIX the flour and powdered sugar together. Add the butter. Mix together and press the mixture into a 9-inch deep dish pie plate. Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until lightly browned then let cool.

3. COMBINE the sugar, salt and cornstarch in medium size saucepan. Slowly whisk in the milk until smooth. Cook over medium heat until thick, stirring constantly. Boil 1 minute, then remove from the heat.

4. STIR a small amount of the hot mixture into the beaten egg yolks. Pour it back into the pan and cook for 2 minutes more, without letting the mixture boil. Remove from the heat and stir in vanilla; fold in sour cream. Cover and cool to lukewarm.

5. LINE the pie shell with the sliced strawberries and pour the filling over the berries. Chill well before cutting into wedges. Makes 8 servings.
 
> See many more delicious recipes from the California Milk Advisory Board.

> Also check out this raspberry cream pie recipe (National Raspberry Cream Pie Day is August 1st).
 
 
MORE STRAWBERRY RECIPES

Beverage Recipes

 
 
Dessert & Sweet Snack Recipes

 
 
Savory Food Recipes

 
 
Holiday & Seasonal Recipes

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