"ChocolateChips" news and stories

So it was a lazy Sunday afternoon and I had one rotten banana in the cupboard. I'd been staring at the banana for a few days, watching it grow from spotted to brown to nearly black. I could have thrown it away, but for some reason I felt that that 15 cents worth of fruit had a nobler destiny. But one mushy banana isn't enough for banana bread or cake or muffins. What to do?

Googling "what to do with one rotten banana," I discovered a message board on the topic of leftover bananas, where, scrolling down, I discovered this recipe for banana biscotti. I didn't have any nuts so I smashed a dark chocolate bar with a hammer and tossed the fragments into the dough. These unusual biscotti came out very nicely indeed - they remind me of Banana Nut Crunch cereal. Next time I'll give them an egg wash and sprinkle them with coarse sugar, then serve them with coffee and vanilla ice cream.

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In advance of Valentine's Day the good folks at the San Diego Union Tribune's food section conducted a tasting of chocolate chips earlier this week. Not being much of a baker, I'd opt for champagne truffles as way to express affection through chocolate rather than chocolate chips.

But let's get back to the paper's survey. The eight panelists sampled the chips in cookies and out of hand, one of my favorite ways to, ahem, "test" chocolate chips.

The chocolatey morsels were evaluated for flavor, texture and performance in a cookie. And the winner for best performance in a cookie (and overall winner) was Guittard Real Semisweet Chocolate Chips. I've never heard of Guittard but a quick Google search revealed that the E. Guittard is a purveyor of some mighty fine sounding gourmet chocolate bars, including Venezuelan Sur de Lago.

The runner-up in the tasting was an old-school classic: Nestle Toll House Semisweet Chocolate Morsels.

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Even though it sounded like a promising idea, activists for the "scent sensitive" have gotten the chocolate chip scent banned from bus shelters after only one day! These complainers - oops, I mean activists - claimed that the smells could potentially trigger an asthma attack, although there were no cases of such things occurring. CBS Outdoor, the company that put up the scented strips for the California Milk Processor Board's campaign, said that the strips used no chemicals and that there was no way that they could have directly triggered any allergic reactions, although they are complying with the city's request to take them down.

Honestly, if you can't handle the scent of chocolate chip cookies, how on earth can you handle taking a bus in a big city? Do these activists actually walk around San Francisco? It's not the cleanest-smelling city in the world. Besides, in just about any city the scent of chocolate chip cookies would be an improvement over exhaust, sewer and trash fumes. Perhaps they found the scent to be too appealing and were actually worried that cookie cravings would cause people to hyperventilate in excitement. Or maybe they were worried that their own cravings would make them blow their diets the next time they walked by a bakery.

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Matisse and Jack's is a company that makes mixes for homemade, natural energy bars. The mixes come in two flavors, Chocolate Chip and Cranberry Walnut, and include healthy ingredients like oats and flaxseed. The mixes have no refined flours, no preservatives and no hydrogenated oils. They're a good source of protein, iron, calcium and omega-3 fatty acids. The premise behind the mixes is that are a fresh, economical and eco-friendly way to snack on energy bars. Sounds great, but how do they taste?

For something so simple and healthy, they taste very good. The chocolate chip bars are absolutely packed with chocolate chips. To make the bars, you just stir in a combination of applesauce and/or yogurt according to the package directions. The resulting bars are very moist and chewy. They have a fresh, oaty taste, unlike the processed, overly-sweet taste of commercial bars. I think that they're a great option for on-the-go breakfasting, especially because I actually did feel energized after eating them!

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My refrigerator is always full of buttermilk. You see, I'm a thrifty soul, and if I need buttermilk for a recipe I can't bear to buy the pint-sized cartons. Did you even see the price per fluid ounce? No, I must go for the economical two-quart-sized container. Thing is: there is no recipe on the whole earth that calls for a half gallon of buttermilk.* Instead, I measure out 1/2 cup or five tablespoons or some other amazingly tiny quantity. And then, every time I pick up a recipe, I think, how can I use buttermilk in this?

So when I was looking for a recipe for scones the other day, I was terrifically happy to find this one on Nicole's blog. I made it, with great success, and then started scheming. How could I use even more of the ingredients slowly turning from "non-perishable" to "perished" in my pantry shelves? I emailed Nicole, I rummaged to find white chocolate chips and dried blueberries and I made these fantastic drop scones. [click through for recipe]

*portions of this post may be highly exaggerated.