Put diets on hold to celebrate New Year

You can forget the weight loss diet for a slight longer. The holiday season is not yet over. Get those party hats prepared because it will soon be time for a New Year’s celebration! And what better way is there to welcome in the New Year than with more excellent taste treats?

You only require two ingredients for Bacon Wraps ... bacon and club crackers. A strip of bacon is cut into 3 slices. Each slice is wrapping around the center of a cracker. The crackers are placed on a rack in a baking pan and baked at 300 degrees until the bacon becomes crisp and the crackers get on the bacon flavor. These can be made ahead and stored in a sealed container until snack time.

After all those rich cakes, pies, candies and cookies we enjoyed during the Christmas season, you might not desire anything sweet for your New Year’s celebration. However, if you can do, Coconut Cream Dip is a good choice.

Enjoy and then get ready for that yearly resolution to eat healthier foods in the New Year.

Designing coffee tea flavor

In our out-of-control merry-go-round lives, a beverage that suggests a buzz or a breather sounds more like a necessity than a luxury. That’s why coffee and tea beverages are still going powerful.
In fact, the combined markets of Japan, North America and West Europe for prepared to drink (RTD) coffee amounted to 3,163 million liters, according to a 2006 report from drinks consultancy Zenith International.

Putting the magical brew of coffee or tea in a bottle takes some actual doing on the beverage formulator’s part.

Caffeine is an issue, too, in both coffees and teas, where levels differ depending on raw materials and processing. “Flavors with an inherent sweetness help mask the bitterness -vanillas for coffee, peach and pear for teas.”

Mighty milk with tres leches cake

Tres Leches Cake, three milk, or sometimes four milk, soaked cake, is a Latin dessert staple that is comparatively new to food culture.

This rich sponge cake is made with sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, entire milk and sometimes, heavy cream and is similar to the Italian dessert, tiramisu, in that both are liquid-filled, layered sponge cakes, softly iced. Most tres leches cake isn’t soaked in alcohol, but somewhat, milk.

The induction of the tres leches cake to the pantheon of delicious desserts might have come after WWII when Nestle set up an operational plant in Mexico.

Pure Vegetables, the overlooked pleasure of a Christmas feast

Cauliflower and potato gratin is easy and satisfying as a side dish at the Christmas feast or as a light main the rest of the year. It's perfectly easy to make as Roast split squash until its tender, then spoon the pulp into a food processor and puree it with the rest of the ingredients.

The big bang captures too much of our attention at Christmas. As kids (and maybe even later), we directly go for the biggest packages under the tree, ignoring the more apparently modest stockings by the fireplace. The adult equivalent of that comes at the table, where we'll plan for weeks the massive roast that will be the centerpiece of Christmas dinner, the spectacular desserts that will cap it, or the wonderful wines that will make everything flow, and then wake up that morning thinking, "Oh shoot, maybe we ought to have a vegetable too."

Tasty eating with different flavors

Besides festive sweaters and gifts galore, the holidays also bring about many delicious traditions. One of these traditions date back over 350 years - the candy cane. Its unique shape allows it to be evenly as cool to decorate with as it is to eat during the holiday season, and its traditional mint taste has made the peppermint flavor synonymous with the Christmas season.

Mint has since recognized itself as a classic flavoring component in a variety of dishes. While there are over 30 different species of mint, the two most general are spearmint and peppermint. Peppermint is the more pungent of the two and, of course, is mainly noteworthy during the holidays via the popularity of the candy cane. Yes, peppermint is considered as necessary to the Christmas season as pumpkin is to Thanksgiving. Nowadays, candy canes are available in all sorts of flavors and sizes, but even the quintessential peppermint candy cane had an attractive and debatable heritage.

Coffee helps to reduce diabetes risk

Drinking coffee helps to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a meta-analysis in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The analysis of 457,000 subjects participating in about 3 dozens of studies found an inverse association between coffee consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes.

Specifically, for each additional cup of coffee consumed every day, the diabetes.
Risk was reduced in the drinkers compared to those who did’nt drinks, the researchers found.

Great time to have a beverage tea

Tea ranks second only to water as the planet’s preferred drink. It transcends each border, from jungle to desert to big city. In some cultures, Tea is a ritual.

Despite its broad variety, all tea begins the same, as green leaves. Processing determines its fate, from black to white to smoke to flavored. The worth depends on the skill of the tea maker.
As leaves are picked, they were immediately begin to oxidize (wilt and decompose). This is fermentation, and how far it goes determines tea flavors. Packaging is dangerous. Tea left in air ultimately produces a fungus that causes bitterness.

In the United States, it is strictly a beverage. Elsewhere it is that plus a condiment, used in the flavoring of food.

One of the reasons rice tastes good in Chinese restaurants is it may be cooked in excess tea. The teas produce a delicate flavor. Try Oolong tea with Basmati rice.

Have your traditional Christmas cake

The Christmas cake, as we know it today, is the coming together of two customs in Victorian times: plum porridge and a boiled fruit cake made from the best milled flour, which for centuries had been a festive staple in rich households.

The making of the cake was a family affair with small rituals attached. Everyone would take turns stirring the mixture, before the cake was baked and then fed with alcohol in the accumulate to the big day. Well, the tradition goes on still today as the ‘Cake Mixing' or the ‘Fruit Soaking Ceremony'. Fruit soaking for the traditional Christmas cake is a ceremony which has been in fashion since early Victorian times in Europe, bringing cheer to all those involved in it. The Christmas cake is a must in every house and there is a tale behind its making. The story goes that in the early days people used to eat an easy porridge on Christmas Even after a day of fasting. They then added dried fruits and spices to create it special for Christmas.

Tejocote is no longer prohibited fruit

Tejocote, a peculiar crab-apple-like fruit that most people have never heard of but that is a crucial ingredient in ponche, the hot fruit punch emblematic of the holidays. Once the most smuggled fruit on the Mexican border, tejocote is prohibited no more.

Cheap and abundant in the Mexican highlands, tejocote (pronounced te-ho-COT-e) can’t be imported to this country because it can harbor exotic insect pests that would devastate American agriculture. So devotees of real ponche have had to resort to frozen or jarred or even smuggled fruit;

Tejocotes are also used in Christmas pinatas; for making jellies, jams and fruit cheese; for candying, such as for toffee apples; for extracting profitable pectin; and also for weaving into necklaces.

What is ‘flavored water’ and ‘sweetened flavored water’?

“Flavored Water” shall mean *Purified water containing Natural Flavors or Nature identical Flavoring Substances not more than 0.02 ~0.05% derived from extracts of Herbs, Fruits or parts of Plant origin, flavor concentrates in minute traces, individually or in combination. It contains No color, no more of flavor, No sweeteners, no Carbonated gas and no calories. It gives Calories: 0, Total fat 0g, Saturated fat 0g, Total carbs 0g, Sugars 0g, Trans fat 0g, Protein 0g.

“Sweetened Flavored Water” shall mean *Purified water containing Natural Flavors or Nature identical Flavoring Substances not more than 0.02 ~0.05% derived from extracts of Herbs, flavor concentrates in minute traces, Fruits or parts of Plant origin, singly or in combination with added artificial sweeteners permitted under PFA Rules, 1955.

Nut salad and dried fruit makes a sugar-free for vegetarians

In the winter months when clean locally grown fruit is in short supply, this vegetarian-friendly fruit salad is not only healthy but delicious as well.

If you don't like green tea, replace it with unsweetened orange, apple or grape juice.
Add a few clean raspberries or strawberries (if in season) to liven up this salad. Dried Fruit Salads with Green Tea 500 ml (2 cups) hot brewed green tea 300 ml (1 1/4 cups) mixed dried fruit (apricots, figs, prunes and dates), diced 75 ml (1/3 cup) almonds, walnut halves, sesame seed or sunflower seed.

In a heatproof bowl, pour hot green tea over fruits. Cover and keep cold for at least 4 hours, until chilled, or overnight. To serve, spoon into serving dishes and shake over with nuts or seeds or both.

Coffee bean harvesting using stripping method

In Brazil, harvesting the same coffee tree several times is less cost effective than separating and disposal the unripe or overripe cherries. Therefore, Brazil naturally harvests using the stripping method when 75% of the coffee crop is perfectly ripe. Stripping is possible and cost effective in Brazil due to the uniform maturation of Brazilian coffees. In stripping, the coffee beans are pulled from the tree and drop to the ground where they are caught by sheets. The beans are removed from tree debris by tossing the coffee in the air allows the wind to carry away sticks and leaves. The coffee is then put in 60 L green baskets, which is the tool are measurement used by coffee producer to determine wages. Some coffee estates, such as Fazenda Monte Alegre in Sul de Minas Brazil, have a computerized system to determined wages for picking coffee beans. This system accounts for the amount of coffee collected from each person, the difficulty of the coffee harvesting conditions, and the production of the area being harvested.

Have a great cup of coffee in your home

The heart of a gourmet coffee drink is the espresso shot, flavored with milk-stuff, sugar-stuff or spice-stuff or blend with ice or foam. It was Achille Gaggia who invented the modern espresso machine in 1938, which use pressure to extract the best flavor and aroma from ground beans.

The signature of an ideal shot is the crema, the ephemeral golden foam of oils, proteins and sugars floating on the ebony slurry of extra virgin extraction. You only get that when properly chosen and roasted beans are properly ground and pressed and then properly heated and pressurized water is forced through the coffee during the proper 20-25 second window.

Pear can add add flavor to famous dishes

Although pears are both gorgeous and bountiful, you may not fully appreciate the fruit if you are only serving them as a snack.

Pears’ distinctive flavors are evenly delightful as ingredients in entrees.

Depending on the variety you decide, a pear will infuse your dish with a hint of spice - imagine cloves or nutmeg - or a suggestion of honey. Use this pear in an entree salad, top with a curry dressing.

Comice, heavy-bottomed pear, a squat, is valued for its balance of sugar and acid. It’s a wonderful accent to sugary potatoes or winter squash in a puree.