Ah, almonds. So beautiful in their tidy simplicity, so limitless in their potential. This bowl of almonds, snapped by Andrea of Bella Eats, was destined to become a jar of almond butter. And while it was undoubtedly delicious, this photo speaks volumes about the raw appeal of raw almonds. It's easy to imagine sprinkling them over yogurt with a drizzle of honey, or stirring them into some oatmeal with a bit of brown sugar and butter -- or simply eating them by the fistful, straight from the bowl.
It's easy to be mesmerized by decadent, complex flavors. Sometimes, though, the sweetest surprise is one that basks in simple, nostalgia-inducing basics.
Peanut butter Chocolate Eggs are a staple of the classic Easter basket. Nestled amongst the malted milk balls, cream eggs and bunnies, they are also a mystery: Seemingly innocuous chocolate conceals a treasure of nutty, buttery flavor. Some might take these treats for granted -- especially in their store-bought incarnation -- but we reckon once candy-lovers taste this incredible homemade variety they may not be able to go back to the bag.
Having a nut allergy, for years I never even glanced at anything nut-centric, save for my beloved peanut butter. I slowly realized almonds were also okay, and that pine nuts were too -- I had no idea they were in pesto (oh, the ignorance of the pre-Internet days!). So I'm on the slow bus when it comes to nuts, which is why I never had roasted pine nuts until now.
This is one of those times that I quickly fell in love, but also became quite angry that the revelation was coming after 30+ years on this earth. What a waste! The wonderful smell of roasting pine nuts is addictive, and their taste is rich, roasted heaven. The first batch were mixed into some mayo and put on a sandwich of roasted vegetables. Heaven. The next batch went into a salad. Heaven. The next, well, that went right into my stomach. What comes next, I'm still working on, but I am thinking about some pine nut/popcorn combination.
If you can eat pine nuts and have never roasted them, I demand that you do it now and see for yourself. It's too easy not to -- sprinkle some in any dry pan and throw it on your stove. Heat 'em up, being careful to jiggle the pan and move the pine nuts around once they start releasing their wonderful smell and change color. It will only take a few minutes.
If you're an old fan of the roasted pine nuts, please share any recipes you love below!
My mom called me yesterday just to report on the status of her favorite brand of peanut butter. She is devoted to Adams Natural Peanut Butter (she's a fan of the 26 ounce size, as once it's empty, the jar is a really useful size/shape) and eats it on toast for breakfast nearly every day. Thankfully, Adams has been found to uncontaminated (they're running a large announcement on the front page of their website to calm consumers) and so her morning routine is uninterrupted.
However, according to the New York Times, peanut butter sales are down 25% across the board, even in brands that have been shown to be salmonella-free. Over the weekend, Jif placed ads in newspapers throughout the country, stating that their product is safe and offered consumers a $.35 off coupon in the hopes that sales will rebound. Peter Pan Peanut Butter has plans to run a similar announcement next weekend, along with a $.50 off coupon.
How are you feeling about peanut butter consumption these days? Are you taking a break from the lunchtime staple or continuing to eat it (after checking to ensure your favorite brand was safe)?
A staple of Malaysian and Indonesian cooking, candlenuts come from trees in the family Euphorbiaceae, also known as Candle Berry, Indian walnut, Kemiri, Varnish tree or Kuku'i nut tree. The nuts are greenish-brown and approximately golf ball-sized, with a very hard exterior and a high oil content.
In Malaysia, candlenuts are a major ingredient in a popular Indian-influenced curry dish called Chicken Kapitan, imparting a nutty flavor. In Indonesia, candlenuts are ground with chilis to make a spicy, pungent relish called sambal bajak; they're also sometimes rubbed on frying pans instead of oil. In Hawaii, roast candlenuts are ground into a paste with salt to make a condiment called inamona. If you can't find candlenuts, macadamias or Brazil nuts can be substituted.
Let's play the old "Which Item Doesn't Belong" game:
A. Greens and cornbread. B. Penn and Teller. C. Food and drugs.
If you picked C, reasoning that the pairs in A and B go together swimmingly while food and drugs don't at all, then you and I and Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro are all on the same page. According to a New York Times editorial focused on the current peanut product salmonella crisis, Rep. DeLauro has proposed that food and drugs have no business being united under one umbrella agency.
This idea is not even close to new; I remember hearing it from food scientists a couple years ago. This is the first time I've seen it mentioned in a major news publication, though. Here's hoping the proposal will gain momentum. Not only is the science of regulating food versus approving and regulating medication almost totally separate, but also the drug part of the agency hogs all the resources and, as the NYT points out, all the clout. Compared to crazy side effects and Viagra and cures for debilitating disease, routine checks of food processing facilities is unsexy to say the least. But it is every bit as important, affecting, as it does, everybody.
Quick: what field crop comes to mind of when you think of the Napa Valley? If you immediately thought "mustard," you're not wrong, and you're not alone. In the right circles, the Napa Valley is as well known for its mustard as it is for that other crop which does well there. Those fields of endless yellow are celebrated in festivals, are a staple of local cuisines both formal and informal, and are a welcome sight in the great client-relations tradition of the Napa Valley gift basket.
When I think of pistachios, I automatically think sweet. Perhaps, this is due to the Egyptian and Syrian side of my family. From an early age, I associated pistachios with sweet syrupy nutty baklava and pistachio ice cream. We would alternate between pistachio baklava and the traditional one made with walnuts and almonds.
As I got older, I started to explore other pistachio flavored desserts. On a recent culinary adventure to Café Sabarsky in Manhattan I discovered the Austrian cake Mozart Torte. This one was made with pistachios, chocolate, and nougat cream. I haven't had any luck yet finding the recipe.
Below are 8 delicious pistachio recipes that are sure to fulfill your craving for something sweet and nutty:
If I was ever going to envision the perfect cereal website, it would probably come pretty close to Me and Goji. In a clear, easy-to understand manner, the site allows users to design their own cereals, using a wide-ranging collection of flakes, nuts, fruits, and flavors. As customers add and subtract from their "bowl," the sidebar keeps track of the price and nutritional info of their concoction. Information about the origins and composition of ingredients is available at the click of a mouse, as are recommendations and advice. Having designed the perfect cereal, customers can name it, save the recipe, and order capsules of it. Delivery is quick and easy, and the saved recipe makes re-ordering a snap.
For my cereal, I used Goji's artisanal cereal, a robust mix of grains that stood up nicely to milk. Keeping it simple, I added dried goji berries, cashews, and coconut, which resulted in a delicately-flavored cereal with a nicely varied texture. I also tried Me and Goji's seasonal blend, a mix of their "flaxed and flaked" cereal with goji berries, cranberries, apple, golden raisins, pumpkin seeds, and cinnamon. While their mix was much more interesting than mine, I found the massive quantity of dried fruit to be a little too chewy for my tastes, and the flaxed and flaked cereal quickly grew soggy. In future experiments, I will probably go with other cereal bases, as I'm a big fan of sturdy flakes.
I thought reading about melamine in food and the hysteria around listeriosis was bad enough. Medheadlines.com reports that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have confirmed that "more American children than ever are developing allergies to some of the most common items in the nation's food supply." The latest report says that the number has jumped a whopping 18% in the last decade, which they fear is an underestimation.
The piece goes on to note that children in other areas that haven't adapted a Western diet have been a-ok. But for the poor tykes stateside, eggs, milk, wheat, soy, fish, shellfish, peanuts, and/or tree nuts are ravaging young bodies everywhere. At this rate, we'll have a society of bubble boys and girls when another 10 years passes. Doesn't look like all that food avoiding is doing any good.
Will this whole allergen debacle ever get resolved? I'm still waiting to find out why I can devour peanuts, pine nuts, and almonds with no problem, but have to ingest mass amounts of Benadryl if the other nutty culprits come into play.
Chestnuts, their glossy shells a reddish-brown shade that launched a thousand hair dyes, look like the acorn's voluptuous, glammed-up cousin. The starchy nut of the Castanea sativa tree, they're often viewed as a Christmas-only food in America ("chestnuts roasting on an open fire" and all that). But back in the day, chestnuts were so prevalent they were considered a poor man's food, a staple of everyday early American cooking. The nut, which matures in fall, is still used in all kinds of dishes around the world, but has become much rarer and more expensive in America due to a blight that killed off most of the country's chestnut trees in the early 20th century.
In Italy, chestnuts are ground into flour to make breads and cakes, and fermented into beer. In New England., they're sometimes still used in stuffing (check out this recipe for chestnut and mushroom stuffing). In France, marrons glacés, or candied chestnuts are a popular winter treat, often wrapped up in frilly layers of gold and silver paper to be given as presents. In China, they're eaten roasted and salted as snacks, or used in stir-fries (see The New York Times' The Minimalist's recipe for shrimp and chestnut stir-fry).
I'm a huge fan of Korean food. It's spicy and so full of fresh, vibrant ingredients that I always feel superhealthy after eating it. So when I heard that a gigantic bowl of bibimbap would be served on the stretch of New York City's West 32 Street better known as Korea Way last Sunday I dropped everything and hopped on the subway. For those unfamiliar with Korean cuisine, bibimbap is a dish consisting of rice mixed with a wide array of ingredients. There's usually plenty of veggies, a bit of meat and there's always gojujang, a fiery chili pepper paste. The version that was served up to a hungry horde that day is known as Jeonju bibimbap. Before mixing the ingredients were laid out in a stunning visual display that used five colors (green, white, red, black and yellow) and resembled the Korean flag. The 507-pound bowl of bibimbap contained 19 ingredients and took 27 people 43 hours to prepare.
With all of the disturbing news about Chinese treats, foods, and melamine, here's a snack that's darned tasty and dangerous chemical-free.
Bamba. The stuff is all the rage in Israel. Basically, it's the peanut butter version of the cheese puff -- airy little tubes of tastiness. (In fact, it started out, years ago, as a cheese snack before switching to peanut in 1964.) What's interesting about bamba is that when you put it on your tongue, there's not a lot of taste. However, as soon as you bite into it, there's a peanut butter explosion -- it's like licking up a dollop of peanut butter and avoiding the stickiness. What's better -- it's all-natural. Bamba's list of ingredients is: peanuts (49%), corn, vegetable oil, and salt.
The snack is starting to hit regular grocery stores (finally!) in Canada, and I don't know about stores stateside, but it is available here. Any bamba fans out there?
The first time I ate a mooncake I was just out of college. I happened upon the dense sweet treat at a Chinese bakery. I opted for the mixed nut variety, since egg yolk didn't strike me as very appealing. More on that later. First, let's clear one thing up for those who've never heard of or eaten a mooncake: They are not made on the moon. These treats stamped with Chinese characters are eaten in China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival which took place this past Sunday.
I grabbed the assortment shown here yesterday; so don't let the fact that this harvest festival has ended stand between you and some tasty yuèb?ng, as they're known in Chinese. Most Chinese bakeries make mooncakes year-round.
In the center is a very traditional Chinese variety filled with red bean paste and the large guy off to the right is a mixed nut mooncake. The real find, though was the quartet of Golden Starlight brand Malaysian mooncakes. When I think of Malaysian cuisine, I usually forget about the Chinese influence, largely because my favorite dishes, like beef rendang, tend to be curry-based.
I recently tried this bread recipe from Young Mo Kim I found while perusing a magazine called Pastry and Baking North America. Bread and red wine just go so well together that I had to see what a bread made with red wine would taste like. It was good if I do say so myself.
The recipe is called red wine walnut bread, but I had some dried currants which I thought would be so much better with the red wine. There's no specific red wine mentioned, and I just used a Cabernet Sauvignon. I made two more deviations from the recipe. Since I didn't have any rye meal, I used the same amount of wheat bran instead. Also, I forgot the softened butter, so I'm not sure how the bread would have turned out with it.
Even with all of the changes I ended up making, the red wine bread was very good. It was a little dry, which I'm sure would have been taken care of had I not forgotten the butter (or added a little more hydration), but the red wine taste really came through. The taste of the red wine was strongest when I first took a bite, and mellowed after that to a sweet, wheat-y taste. The dried currants were also really nice in this bread, and they added to the sweetness. For more of a crunch and less fruity-ness, go with the walnuts. Recipe after the jump.
We can change the way we make eggs -- scrambled, poached, fried -- but what about changing the eggs themselves? Mix up your scrambling routine with quail eggs.
It's easy to be mesmerized by decadent, complex flavors. Sometimes, though, the sweetest surprise is one that basks in simple, nostalgia-inducing basics.
Quick: what field crop comes to mind of when you think of the Napa Valley? If you immediately thought "mustard," you're not wrong, and you're not alone. In the right circles, the Napa Valley is as well known for its mustard as it is for that other crop which does well there. Those fields of endless yellow are 
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If I was ever going to envision the perfect cereal website, it would probably come pretty close to 
I thought reading about melamine in food and the hysteria around listeriosis was bad enough. 
With all of the disturbing news about Chinese treats, foods, and 
The first time I ate a mooncake I was just out of college. I happened upon the dense sweet treat at a Chinese bakery. I opted for the mixed nut variety, since egg yolk didn't strike me as very appealing. More on that later. First, let's clear one thing up for those who've never heard of or eaten a mooncake: They are not made on the moon. These treats stamped with Chinese characters are eaten in China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam to celebrate the 
Second Helping of Slashfood - June 19
Competitive-Eating Contest to Pit Humans Against Elephants
The Backyard Boom - The Hungry Bride
