It already holds delicious selections of bread, cheese, and other goodies, and now the ante has been upped on New Seaway Fish in Kensington Market -- ruby tuna, butterfish, and even sushi extras.
Wine suggestions under $20: Yellow Tail 2007 Pinot Grigio, Cono Sur 2007 Shiraz, and Nobilo Regional Collection 2006 Sauvignon Blanc.
We already mentioned that we (wouldn't) be celebrating March as National Flour Month, but we certainly don't want the wrath of peanut lovers everywhere falling upon us for not recognizing it as National Peanut Month (not to be confused with November as National Peanut Butter Lovers Month). On this last day of the month, let's take a moment to identify some of this special legume's nutritional benefits: high-quality plant protein, unsaturated fat, vitamin E, minerals such as magnesium, copper, phosphorous, and zinc, B vitamins (including folate), and zero cholesterol.
We highly recommend the easiest way to commemorate this day: with a simple peanut butter sandwich, but don't let us stop you from something more elaborate like a peanut soup.
Uh. Yeap, that definitely look like a heart-shaped peanut to us.
However, we highly doubt that the tiny heart-shaped peanut was grown specifically for Valentine's Day, as the farmer claims. It seems to us that, like finding Jesus, Mary, and Elvis on toast, the heart-shape is just a natural, one-time anomaly that can't be reproduced by the farmer. We'd be interested to see the heart-shaped peanut's siblings from the same plant.
With all the fancy schmancy genetic engineering they can do nowadays, scientists could probably design a plant that grows heart-shaped nuts, but not for this Valentine's Day.
First of all, shame on you for what you're thinking. Second, shame on you for what you're thinking.
Today is National Grab Some Nuts Day. I have no idea how this differs from National Nut Day (I'm sure such a day exists), except for the grabbing aspect. Don't lift or scoop, you have to grab.
My favorite nuts are cashews and pistachios, and I've been meaning to pick a can or two up (even if I do think of nuts as a fall and winter snack, don't ask me why). Here are some recipes you can make with nuts: Sugar and Spice Nuts, Rosemary Toasted Nuts, and a bunch of recipes from GroupRecipes.com, including salads, side dishes, and desserts.
Thanks to the work of a North Carolina food scientist, help is on the way for the more than half million U.S. residents who suffer from life-threatening peanut allergies.
Dr. Mohamed Ahmedna of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University has devised a way to deactivate peanut allergens. The allergens are removed by processing rather than by breeding. All of this has no effect on the peanut's taste or quality, and may actually make them easier to process.
Ahmedna's discovery is also a boon for peanut farmers, who produce the U.S.' 12th largest crop valued at some to $1 billion a year. His work is good news for folks with other food allergies, too. Ahmedna is tweaking his process to remove allergens from other foods.
Peanut butter preference can be a very personal thing. Some people like theirs chunky, others prefer theirs to be creamy and smooth. Some would rather have natural, others enjoy the familiarity of commercial brands that they ate growing up. Growing up, my family solved the problem of preference by having multiple jars of peanut butter on hand at all times, ensuring that everyone had something they liked for toast and sandwiches, in addition to making sure there was something to use for baking peanut butter cookies.
Joe, at Culinary in the Desert Country, usually does a great job with plating and photographing the recipes that he blogs, in addition to choosing ones that sound promising in the first place. His Snickers Fudge takes the cake, though. Not only does it look perfectly made and far better than a "real" Snickers bar could hope to, but it sounds even more decadent than the popular candy bar. The one significant twist that his recipe offers is that it has peanut butter in several of the layers, adding a distinctive richness to the chocolate layers and the nougat. (Snickers - are you listening?) Normally, making the nougat would be a challenging endeavor for even experienced cooks, but this version is made in part with marshmallow creme - hence the designation of the recipe as fudge - and has a fluffy texture. Salted peanuts are folded into the layer before it is topped of with a thick layer of chewy caramel. Joe points out that the only thing difficult about making these is that you have to wait for each layer to set up before moving on. The actual work is very simple and primarily involves melting and spreading, so this might be a fun thing to make with your kids over the holidays
I first discovered this eminently cravable snack food at a Mexican grocery store/taqueria. Cacahuates Estilo Japonés, or Japanese-style peanuts, usually come in clear blue bags. I've always been fascinated by the imagery on the small packages, which ranges from a geisha to a Mr. Peanut-type character dressed in a baseball uniform.
The nuts themselves are sweet and salty all at once. They're coated with a thin shell, that's got a hint of soy sauce. That flavor may very well be this snack's only link to Japan. Hours of Googling, yielded plenty of places to buy them online, but no definitive answer as to whether they're actually from Japan. I did, however, turn up this really cool video blog. Check out the closeups!
We think of many foods as being nuts, but what are they really? Nuts are seeds, but not all seeds are nuts. Specifically a nut is a dry fruit with usually one, but sometimes two or more seeds. These seeds are contained in a hard wall derived from the ovary and remain unattached to the wall. Seeds can be removed from the fruit, but nuts are compound ovaries which are the seed and fruit combined. Not all nuts are edible, some are just too small, and others can be very bitter. Culinarily we label many seeds as nuts when they are not. Peanuts are actually legumes. Cashews are a "false fruit" that forms off the end of the cashew flower. Many "nuts" such as almonds, pistachios, and coconuts are actually drupes. Drupes are when a fleshy outside layer surrounds a hard walled seed, such as a peach.Pine nuts are coniferous seeds. Macadamias are kernels of seeds. Did you know that macadamia nuts are toxic to dogs?
Nuts are high in protein and fats, but the fats tend to be the type that are actually a healthy part of our diet. Especially those found in almonds and walnuts. Nuts have many other nutritional and dietary benefits; Pine nuts may curb the appetite and Pecans are good for your heart. So don't feel too bad about eating all those nuts during the holidays, just don't go overboard, and enjoy going nuts.
Scientists think that a vaccine against food allergies will be available within the next ten years. In the past, 1 in 70 people were reported to have food allergies to items like peanuts, tree nuts like Brazil nuts and cashews, and other serious food allergies. Then doctors started reporting numbers in the 1.6% range. Recently the numbers of people reporting food allergies seem to be in the 5% range. These numbers seem to be increasing, or are they?
Well food allergies may soon be a thing of the past. Scientists are on the verge of being able to create hypo-allergenic versions of the food molecules that cause allergies. These can then be combined with inflammation reducing compounds, to form a safe vaccine to use to desensitize people, and so prevent allergic response. It may take awhile, but our next generation of kids may not have to worry about what their friends are eating for lunch, or kissing someone who ate peanuts earlier that day.
The recommended daily serving size of nuts is about one-ounce, an amount that should contain approximately 160-200 calories, full of protein and other nutrients (vitamin E in almonds, manganese in hazelnuts and iron in cashews, for example). A nutty snack will also fill you up with a good balance of protein, unsaturated fats and carbs. The problem lies in getting that one-ounce size. I know that if I want to eat some nuts, I don't put them on my scale in the kitchen before I pop them into my mouth, although I do worry a bit about how many I've eaten when a big bowl is placed in front of me. An extra serving or two of nuts can add up quickly, especially if you're indulging a bit extra over the holidays. The trick is to learn what a one ounce portion looks like and nutnutrition.com, which is run by Planters, has a great interactive resource to help you do just that. The site lets you see what one-ounce of nuts looks like when scattered and in a 1/4 cup measure. After a couple of visits to the site, you'll be able to sit in front of that big nut bowl and snack with confidence.
I have no idea why this recipe over at Kraft is called Puppy Chow. Does it look like Puppy Chow? Are you supposed to give it to your dog? (Probably not - chocolate is bad for dogs.) But it's a funny name and a really easy recipe, so let's try it:
1/2 cup peanut butter 4 squares of semi-sweet baking chocolate 8 cups Honeycomb corn and oat cereal 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar
If you have to pick one snack to have available to serve to guests during the holiday season, nuts are not a bad option. Putting problems with allergies aside (which hopefully your guests will inform you of in advance), nuts are healthy, filling and subject to an almost unlimited number of variations, 50 of which can be found in Party Nuts!: 50 Recipes for Spicy, Sweet, Savory, and Simply Sensational Nuts that Will Be the Hit of Any Gathering. The book includes sweet, salty and spicy variations, after starting with a "rule book" for nuts. The "rules" are more like tips and include pointers such as buying your nuts from a reputable source that stock them fresh, as opposed to working from prepacked bags. The author also points out that nuts should be stored in the freezer to prevent the natural oils in them from turning rancid and provides ballpark toasting times, which give you an easy way to add flavor to raw nuts without much work. But with only a bit more time, you can make Hot Pepper Sesame Peanuts, Sugar and Orange Macadamia Nuts, Honey-Cardamom Almonds or Rum Glazed Spiced Pecans.
Ever wonder where all of our nuts come from, especially considering that they are easily found in just about every market you could wander into?
Cashews are grown throughout the tropics, but most come from are India and East Africa. They are never sold in the shell because there is an extremely caustic oil between the inner and outer layers which must be burned off before they can be sold.
Almonds originated in the Mediterranean, but California now produces 80% of the world's supply.
Macadamia nuts are native to Australia and were brought to Hawaii about 100 years ago. Commercial production began around 1920 and most of the world's macadamias are now grown on Hawaii.
Walnuts are the third most popular nut in the US and California produces 2/3 of the world's crop.
Pecans are native to the Mississippi valley and are the only nut native to the US. Georgia is the largest producer of pecans.
Hazelnuts, also known as filbert, are primarily grown in Turkey, where 75% of the world's supply comes from. Almost all the US grown hazelnuts are from Oregon's Willamette valley
Pistachio production is the largest in Iran, which accounts for about 40% of the international crop. The US is the second largest producer, with almost 30% of the crop, 98% of which is grown in California.
Peanuts are not really nuts, but are legumes and members of the pea family (only included here as they most often grouped with nuts). China is the largest producer, with almost 40% of the world crop. India has almost 25%and the U.S., the third largest producing country, has only 6%. Roughly 2/3 of the global peanut crops are processed into peanut oil.
Brazil nuts are resistant to cultivation and are still primarily harvested from the wild in South America.
First of all, shame on you for what you're thinking. Second, shame on you for what you're thinking.
Thanks to the work of a North Carolina food scientist, help is on the way for the more than half million U.S. residents who suffer from life-threatening peanut allergies.
Peanut butter preference can be a very personal thing. Some people like theirs chunky, others prefer theirs to be creamy and smooth. Some would rather have natural, others enjoy the familiarity of commercial brands that they ate growing up. Growing up, my family solved the problem of preference by having multiple jars of peanut butter on hand at all times, ensuring that everyone had something they liked for toast and sandwiches, in addition to making sure there was something to use for baking 
I first discovered this eminently cravable snack food at a Mexican grocery store/taqueria. Cacahuates Estilo Japonés, or Japanese-style peanuts, usually come in clear blue bags. I've always been fascinated by the imagery on the small packages, which ranges from a geisha to a Mr. Peanut-type character dressed in a baseball uniform. 
We think of many foods as being nuts, but what are they really? 
Scientists think that a 
The recommended daily serving size of nuts is about one-ounce, an amount that should contain approximately 160-200 calories, full of protein and other 
I have no idea why 
Ever wonder where all of our nuts come from, especially considering that they are easily found in just about every market you could wander into?
America's Most Hated Foods
Slashfood Ate (8): Ways to create the perfect cheese plate
A good trick for saving summer herbs for future use
