See's Candies -- Just What's in That Box?

I've noticed that Blog Appetit is being searched a lot this holiday season for information on See's Candies. I imagine holiday guests and sweet-toothed Santas have left a lot of See's boxes without, horrors, leaving a guide for what's inside.

Good news. Each candy is distinctively marked. Recently I've been to some See's stores and seen a full color handout as to which piece is which. Also, most of See's individual pieces are also lovingly portrayed on the See's website. Click here to see that.

Prepackaged assortments do come with nutritional information, but if someone created a custom mix for you or if you just went to the shop and bought a few pieces for yourself (one of the delights of shopping See's), that information might not be available. Here's the info on calories, carbs, fat, sugar, etc.

I spent a year tasting and evaulating See's Candies for Sugar Savvy. You can see what I wrote there here (and maybe see if you really want to bite into that apple pie truffle or mincemeat candy). To see what else I've written on Blog Appetit about See's, including a See's trivia quiz, click here.

Update: 12/14/10 -- Unfortunately the links for my Sugar Savvy posts are broken since the Well Fed Network is no more.  Read this post for more info and on how to find Sugar Savvy posts using the Wayback Machine site.

Dine Around Is Back -- Plus Some SF Foodie Info Links to Click

Get ready for two weeks of gourmet lunches and dinners from January 15-31. A three-course lunch is just $21.95 and a dinner is just $34.95.

For all the details and more information, click here. There are oodles of restaurants to pick from, including Absinthe, which I write about here.

The Dine Around Town site is part of Taste SF, sponsored by the vistor's bureau. Check out the other features of the Only in San Francisco Taste SF website including chef profiles, info on farmers' markets and Foodie 411 , a blog all about the SF restaurant scene.

Mix It Up New Year's Eve with a Luxe, Chocolate Treat

Just in time for holdiay parties, I posted about Bellatrix Chocolates and owner Anya Wayne's amazing chocolate party mix. You can read about it here on Sugar Savvy. I think this luxe (and easy) party mix would complement New Year's gatherings as well. (I might even make a batch today to celebrate my birthday -- let them have cake, I'll have this mix!)

You can read all about Anya's suggestions for how to make this the best party mix treat ever over at Sugar Savvy. Here's the recipe to get you started.


Bellatrix’s Luxe Party Mix

4 ounces of high quality chocolate. Use large chocolate round or oval drops or “pallets” or chop bar chocolate into 1/4 to 1/2 inch chunks. (I used organic Dagoba 73 percent cacao content dark chocolate drops I found in the Whole Foods baking supply section.)

2.5 ounces of sultana raisins, dried cherries, dried cranberries or chopped dried apricots or figs. (I used dried cranberries.)

3.5 ounces of roasted almonds, walnuts or cashews or small cubes of crystallized ginger. You can use caramelized nuts, but since they can be sticky, mix them in later. (I used roasted pistachio nut meats.)

Scant 1/4 teaspoon nut (such as almond, walnut or hazelnut), neutral (such as canola) or the very best extra-virgin olive oil (The oil helps make the salt stick.)

1/4 teaspoon or to taste, finely ground sea salt. (I used my best fleur de sal, which worked perfectly)

In a mixing bowl, combine the first three ingredients (except if using caramelized nuts), drizzle the oil over the mix. Toss well until the ingredients show an even sheen. Sprinkle in the salt and toss again. If using caramelized nuts, add them now and stir gently until mixed through. Serve in a bowl worthy of such a mix. (Or maybe put in individual champagne or martini glasses around the room for that New Year's Eve effect.)

Update: All Sugar Savvy/Well Fed Network links are broken -- however you can see the referenced post courtesy of the Way Back Machine here.

Bright Lights, Fun Nights and Gravlax -- It Must Be the Holiday Season

Things have been festive here in Blog Appetit land.

We've attended several swell Chanukah parties -- annual affairs hosted by friends who are like family with not so much dreidel to play, but lots of latkes (potato pancakes) to eat. Still to come are birthday celebrations (for me!) and New Year's Eve festivities with catering by a private chef.

Jody, the hostess of the first party, is a good friend and an amazing cook. I felt honored when she asked if I could bring an appetizer and a vegetable side dish to complement her homemade chopped liver, prime rib, latkes with homemade applesauce, and more dinner. The side dish was easy -- Brussels sprouts. They are in season, very reasonable, my husband and Jody love them and I have a good recipe for them (more in another post). But the appetizer, that was harder to decide on.

I wanted something that was special and not too heavy (after all there was chopped liver), something that if not traditionally Jewish felt right. I did my usual crawl through the cookbooks when it suddenly came to me -- gravlax (cold cured salmon) would be perfect. It wasn't lox, a traditional Jewish brine-cured salmon or smoked salmon, but it had a definite gravitas and flavor that would work well at a Chanukah feast. (FYI -- Did you know the word lox comes from the same root word for salmon in German and Yiddish that is related to the Swedish word for salmon -- lax?)

Back to the cookbooks for more research. I decided on a Marcus Samuelsson recipe which I adapted. Samuelsson was born in Ethiopia, grew up in Sweden and became noted for his Scandinavian cooking at Aquavit in New York.

His recipe calls for kosher salt. As if I needed a sign that gravlax was "Jewish" enough for what I wanted, there is was. On the back of my decade-old box of Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt was a recipe for gravlax and an accompanying mustard-dill sauce.

Making gravlax is relatively straight forward, you just need to allow enough time for the salt, sugar and pepper cure to do its work. Like many homemade versions of foods people are used to buying (such as pickles and ice cream), people assume making your own is much more complicated than the process really is, adding to the wow factor. Plus the cured salmon is delicious.

I've served it several ways, once as a starter for a Jewish holiday meal with an Italian green sauce with parsley, green olives and garlic (recipe here) as a first course and last Sunday as an appetizer sprinkled with chopped dill with mustard sauce on small squares of pumpernickel cocktail bread. This article has other serving suggestions and recipes, including one for a mustard-dill sauce. (I used Trader Joe's mustard aoli sauce, which I thought complemented the fish nicely.)

Holiday Gravlax

This version is very peppery, which I think cuts through the sweetness provided by the sugar in the curing mixture. The dill taste is there, but is not prevalent.

Makes about 3 pounds of gravlax or about 24 appetizer-sized servings

(Recipe adapted from Marcus Samuelsson's Gravlax with Mustard Sauce as it appeared in Dr. Shapiro's Picture Perfect Weight Loss Cookbook.)

1/2 cup kosher salt
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons ground white pepper
2 tablespoons cracked (very coarsely ground) peppercorns -- I used a mix of five types, but all black or all white would work fine
3 pounds of salmon filets
3 bunches of fresh dill, divided
1 lemon, cut in thin slices or wedges

Toss together the salt, sugar and peppers. Mix thoroughly. Take about a half cup and rub it on both sides of the filet. Place the salmon in a non-reactive pan or dish that will accommodate it (my three pounds of filet were in two pieces and fit nicely in a large glass baking dish), skin side down if your filet still has its skin attached. Scatter the rest of salt, sugar and pepper mixture on top of the filet(s). Scatter the individual branches of dill from two of the bunches over the top. Cover with plastic wrap. Let sit at room temperature for about six hours. Move to the refrigerator. The salmon will exude liquids, refrigerate for 1-3 days, making sure the filet(s) stay evenly covered by the liquid. The fish should be nicely finished throughout and have a cured taste. (The longer you allow it to cure, the stronger the flavor. Very thin filets will cure faster than thicker ones.)

Remove from the brine, discard dill and brush off any remaining salt or peppercorns. (Remove the skin from the bottom of the salmon if necessary.) Slice thinly on the bias in short strips for appetizer portions to be served on bread or crackers or larger ones to serve as a starter. Serve with chopped dill from the remaining bunch and the lemon slices. (Note: If you are using the Italian green sauce, I'd opt to not to sprinkle the fresh, chopped dill over the gravlax.)

For step-by-step photos and a slightly different technique, click here.

Bonus: Here's Samuelsson's recipe for mustard sauce in case you need it: Mix 1 tablespoon honey mustard, 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard, 2 teaspoons of sugar, 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Mix in 3/4 cup canola or other vegetable oil "while you pour it in a steady stream." When the sauce has thicken to a "mayonnaise-like consistency" stir in a 1/4 cup of chopped fresh dill. (If you use this sauce, you may want to skip using the fresh dill on the platter of finished gravlax, unless you REALLY like dill.)

(C)hanuk(k)ah Starts Sunday Night -- Read All About It Here and Here and Here ...

Happy Hanukkah or Chanukah or Hanukah!

Looking for information on the holiday's history? Check out this "blast from the past" post. The history of Hanukah might not be just as you thought.

Want a tried-and-true recipe and technique for making potato latkes? Click here.

Do you light the candles left to right or right to left? For a hanukkiah (menorah) how to, go here.

Feeling guilty about not knowing about gelt and how to play dreidel? Got you covered on that, too. Read all about it here (including a resource for a paper pattern to make your own spinning top.)

Watch for more Chanukah (how I grew up spelling the word in English) here on Blog Appetit.

Peppermint Bashing Yields Big Fun for Little Candy Maker

Little Leo and his grandmother, a friend of mine, put my peppermint bark recipe to the test. They used the recipe here. What's not to like -- first you bash the candies, then you get to eat chocolate.

Update: 12/14/10
Unfortunately the link to the post with the recipe has not been maintained. Try this link from the wonderful wayback machine site to see what I wrote. Below is my recipe for the peppermint bark from that post.


Peppermint Bark

• 10-12 red and white candy canes, or about 6-7 ounces of mini candy canes or other peppermint candies
• 1 pound semisweet chocolate, chopped or broken into small pieces (good quality chips okay)
• 12 ounces white chocolate (NOT chips, they will not melt well), chopped or broken into small pieces

Line an approximately 10 by 15 inch rimmed cookie sheet or jelly roll pan with aluminum foil. Make sure the foil lining extends beyond the sides of the pan. Unwrap your peppermint candies of choice and put them inside doubled heavy-duty plastic zipper-lock bags. Make sure you get the air out when you seal the bags. Place on a cutting board on a steady, durable surface that won’t be damaged by some candy bashing (we used the floor). Hit and bash the the candies with a rolling pin, meat tenderizer, or even a hammer until the candies are broken into approximately ¼-inch pieces.

Melt the semisweet chocolate in the microwave or in a double boiler. Spread the melted chocolate in an even layer across the bottom of the prepared, rimmed cookie sheet. Place pan with chocolate in the refrigerator while you make the next layer.

Melt the white chocolate in the microwave or in a double boiler. Take pan with semisweet layer out of refrigerator and spread melted white chocolate on top. Working quickly, evenly scatter peppermint candy pieces (but discard or find another use of those teeny tiny bits of peppermint dust you might have created when you were candy bashing) on top, pressing down slightly on larger chunks to make sure they adhere.

Place confection back in the refrigerator until totally firm, about a half hour. Using the foil lining, lift the bark out of the pan. Peel off the foil and break into irregularly shaped pieces.

Makes about 1 ¾ pounds of candy. Store in the refrigerator in a sealed storage bag or container.

Today -- Help the San Francisco Food Bank by Getting a Bite to Eat

From the SF Food Bank:

DINE OUT AGAINST HUNGER DECEMBER 18
13 Top Restaurants Will Donate a Portion of Proceeds to the San Francisco Food Bank

Restaurants have seen a real slump in business lately, but the folks at Maverick realized some people are facing worse circumstances – the 150,000 San Franciscans at risk of going hungry this holiday season. So Scott Youkilis and Michael Pierce created Dine Out Against Hunger, and organized some of the city’s top venues to donate up to 10% of today’s [December 18th] dinner sales to the San Francisco Food Bank, which supplies over 600 food programs throughout the city.

Participating Dine Out Against Hunger restaurants are: Maverick, Slow Club, Serpentine, Foreign Cinema, Magnolia, Sociale, Slanted Door, Kuleto's, Delfina, Americano, A16, Incanto and SPQR. Maverick will also take 10% off the tab for any customers making an additional donation to the Food Bank.

The focus is on raising cash, because for every $1 donated, the Food Bank can distribute $9 worth of food into the community – thanks to its relationships with retailers, growers and distributors. San Francisco Food Bank’s goal is to distribute 66,000 holiday meals this season.

For reservations, contact the individual restaurants; for more information, visit www.SFFoodBank.org.

Menu for Hope V -- Extended

UPDATE: The donation period for Menu for Hope V has beene extended through December 31st -- so you still can participate in this worthwhile event and maybe even win a prize!

First, some background on Menu for Hope V from organizer Chez Pim. To quote Pim:

"Menu for Hope is an annual fundraising campaign hosted by me and a revolving group of food bloggers around the world. Five years ago, the devastating tsunami in Southeast Asia inspired me to find a way to help, and the very first Menu for Hope was born. The campaign has since become a yearly affair, raising funds to support worthy causes worldwide. In 2007, Menu for Hope raised nearly $100K to help the UN World Food Programme feed the hungry.

"Each December, food bloggers from all over the world join the campaign by offering a delectable array of food-related prizes for the Menu for Hope raffle. Anyone – and that means you too - can buy raffle tickets to bid on these prizes. For every $10 donated, you earn one virtual raffle ticket to bid on a prize of their choice. At the end of the two-week campaign, the raffle tickets are drawn and the results announced on Chez Pim."

To see the master list of prizes, go here.

Blog Appetit will be offering the following donation as a prize (Prize Code Number UW17):

Three books I'm calling "The 'I Wanna Be a Food Writer' Package." It is Will Write for Food by Dianne Jacob, The Recipe Writer's Handbook by Ostmann and Baker, and The New Food Lover's Companion by Herbst. These three books will help give you the skills, passion and even some facts to help you really get your food writing career cooking. It's a great package for food bloggers, too.

To see other prizes donated by western U.S. food bloggers, go here.

To Donate and Enter the Menu for Hope Raffle:
1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from the master prize link
2. Go to the donation site at Firstgiving and make a donation.
3. Please specify which prize you'd like in the 'Personal Message' section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code.
Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02 - 2xEU01, 3xEU02.
4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.
5. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

Menu for Hope V donations are being accepted now until December 31. Raffle winners will be announced on January 12 on Chez Pim.

Want to learn more about past Menu for Hope efforts by the food blogging community to support efforts to vanquish hunger in the world? Click here.

Tis the Season For Peppermint Bark

It's that time of year when the speciality food catalogs are charging $26 a pound for peppermint bark. You can make it yourself for about half or even less depending on what chocolates and candies you choose and if you find a sale.

Here's the recipe I posted in Kid Cuisine (with some pix) a few years ago and the one my teen-aged son made a few nights ago. For more on peppermint bark, peppermint cookies and other related goodies in Blog Appetit, click here.

Peppermint Bark

Taste test your peppermint candy options before you begin. We found that some brands didn’t have as strong a peppermint taste as we would like. We ended up using round peppermint hard candies. If you want your younger children to have fun in the bashing, pick the easy-to-break thin, mini candy canes. Another thing to keep in mind, your candy will only taste as good as the chocolate you use. We used better quality chocolate which resulted in a really luscious treat.

12 red and white candy canes, or about 20 mini candy canes or about 3-4 ounces of peppermint candy

1 pound semisweet chocolate, chopped into small pieces (good quality chips okay)

12 ounces white chocolate (NOT chips, they will not melt well and the taste is not the same), chopped or broken into small pieces

Line an approximately 10 inch by 15 inch rimmed cookie sheet or jelly roll pan with aluminum foil. Make sure the foil lining extends beyond the sides of the pan. Unwrap your peppermint candies of choice and put inside doubled heavy-duty plastic zipper-lock bags. Make sure you get the air out when you seal the bags. Place on a cutting board on a steady, durable surface that won’t be damaged by some candy bashing (we used the floor). Whack the bag with the candies with a rolling pin, meat tenderizer or even a hammer until the candies are broken into approximately ¼ inch pieces.

Melt the semisweet chocolate in the microwave or in a double boiler. Spread the melted chocolate in an even layer across the bottom of the prepared rimmed cookie sheet. Place pan with chocolate in the refrigerator while you make the next layer.

Melt the white chocolate in the microwave or in a double boiler. Take pan with semisweet layer out of refrigerator and spread melted white chocolate on top. Working quickly, evenly scatter peppermint candy pieces (but discard or find another use of those teeny tiny bits of peppermint dust you might have created when you were candy bashing) on top, pressing down slightly on larger chunks to make sure they adhere.

Place confection back in the refrigerator until totally firm, about a half hour. Using the foil lining, lift the bark out of the pan. Peel off the foil and break into irregularly shaped pieces.

Makes about 1 ¾ pounds of candy. Store in the refrigerator in a sealed storage bag or container.

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About the photo -- Noah's latest batch made in a half sheet pan.