• A brief background on bloodsuckers, plus "a bloody fete Dracula would thirst for" -- creative fanger foods, pun intended.
• When left home alone with the task of feeding trick-or-treaters, one columnist came to discover the marvelous match of red wine and chocolate.
• Bacon banter has finally leveled out a bit, but isn't going anywhere anytime soon. However, a recent local event preceding April's Baconfest Chicago wowed porcine appreciators, with dishes like the pumpkin-bacon-waffle with pomegranate-glazed pork belly.
• More than "junk food with a European pedigree," Nutella is a "vaguely wholesome" snack with an interesting background -- and can be made at home from scratch.
• The Festival of Wood- and Barrel-Aged Beer takes place November 7, and pays tribute to a worthy beer trend on the rise.
• A gallery of ten "superfoods" we should be consuming more of, from avocados and beets to chia seeds and dandelion greens.
• Recipes: Comforting Chicken Pot Pie with Drop Biscuits ("the gustatory equivalent of curling up with your favorite blanket"); the luscious Vanilla Ice Cream with Bourbon Walnuts and Caramel; Slow-Cooked Pulled Pork and Spicy Slaw "warms up a Halloween party;" Sheila Lukins' Banana Cake.

Nutella brioche pudding. Photo: No Recipes.

Sweet bread pudding tends to be delicious, and this one looks to be no exception -- a fair assumption considering it's made with bananas, milk, cream, eggs, Nutella -- Nutella! -- and not just any old bread, but brioche. But what if we said it also smelled like roses? Marc from No Recipes added three tablespoons of rose water to the recipe because ... why not?

Though he pulled this bread pudding together from scraps in his kitchen, Marc writes that the result was "swaths of buttery brioche crust enrobed in a fragrant chocolaty custard, holding bits of tender sweet fruit in its folds." We couldn't have said it better ourselves -- unless, of course, we'd had a chance to taste it.

[Via No Recipes]

Ah, the rich velvety taste of hazelnuts and chocolate! What started as a small Italian company, from the 1940s, has become a world sensation. Indeed, yesterday blogs around the world celebrated World Nutella Day. Based on Piedmontese Gianduja, a chocolate containing about 50 percent almond and hazelnut paste, Nutella was created by Pietro Ferrero in his small patisserie in Alba.

World Nutella Day falls just before Valentine's Day, just in time for people to purchase a bottle and concoct a delicious Nutella-based cake. In fact, World Nutella Day even has it's own website with recipes that range from breads, cakes, and ice creams to savory dishes, like pizza. It turns out that you can have a three course meal with nutella! Check out some of our favorite recipes below:

• Banana and Nutella Crepe
• Butternut Squash Ravioli with Nutella Sauce
• Creme au Nutella and Macarons - This gorgeously seductive dessert is certain to increase your taste for love this Valentine's Day.
  
• Super Simple Nutella Ice Cream
• Nutella Champagne Shooter - Okay, the title of this recipe is misleading. This is an exquisite cocktail made with chocolate and hazelnut liqueurs, and a sparkle of Champagne (no Nutella). It's more of a tribute to Nutella worthy of making the list.
• Nutella Espreso
• Coffee Macarons with Nutella Cream
• Nutella Peanut Butter Chip Cookies
• Creamy Nutella Cheesecake with Chocolate Ganache and Toasted Hazelnuts
• Cinnamon Nutella Cake

There are also a whole bunch of delicious nutella-based treats in our Flickr pool. What are some of your favorites?

Biscotti are a type of crispy, Italian cookies that are baked twice. The double baking, which is typically done by baking a log of dough once, slicing it, then baking the newly cut pieces, is what gives the cookies their crunch and gives them an unusually long shelf-life. While a regular chocolate chip cookie can be kept for a few days, biscotti can last for up to a few weeks.

Traditionally, biscotti were flavored with anise, but these days, they come in a wide variety of flavors. This photo shows a fresh batch of Nutella Biscotti, baked by Maya of, She paints the Kitchen. They used cocoa powder for a chocolaty flavor, nutella (of course), chocolate chips and, if you like nuts in your biscotti, chopped hazelnuts can be added as well. The recipe for the biscotti can be found here and they make the perfect complement for a cup of hot coffee, the chocolatiness of the cookie blending beautifully with the coffee as you dunk in each bite to soften it.

While the idea of Nutella filled crepes is very tempting and crepes are not too difficult to make, they do take a bit more effort than more the thicker, American-style pancakes. Pancake batter is so adaptable that just about any ingredient can be worked into it, so I decided to work the chocolate-hazelnut spread into a basic pancake recipe for breakfast. There is just enough Nutella in the batter to give it a good flavor without being overwhelming or making the pancakes too heavy.

And yes, that is chocolate syrup on top of the pancakes in the picture, but I actually ate mine with maple syrup - I just wanted to emphasize the fact that they have an underlying chocolate flavor. By all means, use chocolate syrup if you are so inclined, but spreading the pancakes with a thin layer of Nutella or tossing a handful of chocolate chips into the batter might produce an even more decadent result.

The recipe is after the jump.

Lori of the food blog Dessert Comes First, just returned from what sounded like a fantastic trip to Paris. Like any good blogger, she took lots of photos of her trip, but what is more relevant to us is that she also took lots of photos of her food. She stopped in at what is said to be one of the best creperies in Paris and picked up this Banana and Nutella Crepe. Made on the spot, the hot crepe is quickly smeared with rich, creamy Nutella and a sliced banana. To contrast with the rich filling. A dollop of French vanilla ice cream - made with egg yolks, which provide the slightly yellow tinge, and real vanilla bean - adds a refreshingly cool and delicate layer of flavor to the plate.

Fortunately for those of use who aren't planning Paris trips in the near future, this is an easy treat to reproduce at home. You just need to start with a basic crepe recipe and pick up some Nutella at the market. It would also be brilliant with strawberries and any other fruit that you find works well with the chocolate-hazelnut spread.

We're still getting prepped for Sandwich Day on September 21st and it's never too early to pick up some inspiring tips from fellow food bloggers. Ivonne, from Creampuffs in Venice, put together this gorgeous panini that reminds us that sandwiches don't have to be savory - they can be sweet, too. Her Nutella Supreme Panini have nutella, peanut butter, strawberries and sliced almonds on buttered and toasted baguettes. The bread is grilled in the panini maker before the filling is added (so you could simply toast bread to make this sandwich at home), so the soft fillings don't run out of the sandwich before you have a chance to get it into your mouth.

Chocolate and hazelnut is a nearly-unbeatable combination and among the most popular in the world of confectionery. It seems only natural to combine the flavors in other things, like spreading Nutella on toast, adding hazelnut syrup to a Starbucks mocha or baking a cake. Jessica, at Su Good Eats, tested not one but three different cakes using a hazelnut and chocolate flavor combination in a quest to come up with the best one. Not only are they delicious, but they are also lower in fat than your average cake - quite a feat considering that nuts are rather high in fat, even if it is the heart-healthy kind. Her favorite of the cakes was the above-pictured version of Nigella Lawson's Nutella Cake, which she describes as being almost like a solid slab of nutella: rich, smooth and flavorful. It is definitely the perfect cake to make for a special occasion or on a day when you are feeling just a bit decadent.