Wow-Factor Desserts Excite Menus

Although 46% of consumers still crave the old-fashioned sweets they enjoyed as children—per Technomic’s new "2017 Dessert Consumer Trend Report"—one-of-a-kind, "wow-factor" treats now are trending on today's menus.

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9 Energy-Fueled Snacks to Eat While Black Friday Shopping

For many of us, before we’ve even finished wolfing down the last slices of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, we’re thinking about all the deals we’re going to score during Black Friday shopping. But running through the mall or camping out on a long line to get our hands on some doorbuster deals requires energy—and you’ll need some portable food to provide it. Here are the best energy-fueled snacks to bring along with you so you don’t have to rely on the food court.

Jerky

Chowhound

Jerky is much more than just a gas station snack. In addition to new inventive flavors hitting shelves, the snack provides a hefty serving of protein, which will make sure you’re full as you make your way from store to store. Get our Spicy Turkey Jerky recipe.

Nuts

Chowhound

Whether you grab almonds or pistachios, you’ll get a winning combo of fat and protein, which will keep you going for those long checkout lines. You can snag a pre-portioned package before you head out shopping or create your own with a sandwich bag. Get our Spiced Candied Pecans recipe.

Pre-Cut Vegetables

Chowhound

Just because you’re on the go doesn’t mean you have to forego everything green. A small to-go package of pre chopped veggies like carrots or celery along with hummus makes for a mini-meal that can hang out in your bag while you camp out for a new TV. Get our Easy Hummus recipe.

Granola Bars

Chowhound

Use some critical thinking skills when picking out your granola or cereal bars. Nix anything that overdoes it on the sugar (since it will set you up for a crash later) and pick some that have few ingredients and provide a good amount of protein to keep you satiated. Get our Cherry Power Bar recipe.

Popcorn

Chowhound

If you’re killing time waiting for a store to open, you might want to reach for some popcorn to fill you up. It doesn’t require refrigeration, is low calorie (provided it’s not doused with butter) and is the ideal food for waiting. Get our spicy Spicy Cinnamon-Sugar Popcorn recipe.

Trail Mix

Shutterstock

Alright, you’re not exactly headed into the wilderness, but going shopping on Black Friday can be a bit of a jungle. Trail mix is lightweight and easily transportable and can give you the energy you need to hunt through racks of clothes for your size. Skip the sad store bought version and try our Gourmet Trail Mix recipe instead.

Nut Butter

Fit Mitten Kitchen

Looking for a hands-free snack? Then a to-go package of nut butter is the perfect choice. Squeeze packs mean you don’t even need a spoon to get the hit of calories, fat, and protein you need to walk from one side of the mall to the other and back again. Get this Chai Spiced Almond Cashew Butter recipe.

Kale Chips

Chowhound

No matter if you make your own ( or reach for a package of a ranch or BBQ flavor, kale chips are a better choice than your standard chip. You’ll get a serving of vitamins, along with fiber, which means your hunger pangs won’t distract you from getting that new fancy phone  you’ve been eyeing. Get our Toasted Sesame Kale Chips recipe.

Fresh Fruit

Chowhound

In a pinch, fresh fruit that doesn’t bruise or smush easily is a good choice for an easy to travel snack. Apples provide fiber, while a banana contains a slew of vitamins and can easily be paired with a nut butter packet for a mini-meal. Get our Tropical Fruit Salad with Cacao Nibs recipe.

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Why Is It Hard for Us to Gather Around the Table?

If you look beyond the turkey, the striking thing about Thanksgiving is that everybody sits around a table together.

Sitting around a table together is a modern meme. It’s the force behind the communal table, which went viral with interior designers after some Belgian guy put one in his bakery in the 1980s. The single continuous table is the symbolic central act in the creation myth of Slow Food (to protest a McDonald’s opening in Rome, citizens dragged potluck dishes out of their apartments and onto one long table with mismatched chairs). The single table is an emblem of community, of shared destiny. Also basic humanity: We all have to eat, why not do it together?

We do not do it together. Not in America.

My aunt and uncle own a big, faux-Tuscan mansion in Sonoma, California. On most nights they eat prepared foods from the fancy grocery store in town, but they possess an enormous dining room with a huge and ornately carved table. It gets used one, maybe two times a year—possibly at Christmas, certainly at Thanksgiving.

But once we’re all seated there, no one is easy. We jump up and run to the baronial kitchen to grab things we want. We get out of our seats to take pictures. We follow the kids into the family room to set them up in front of So Random! Coming together around the table, it turns out, is as symbolic as the table itself.

As a young cook, I idolized Alice Waters. It was Waters who turned the notion of gathering around the table into a plausible culinary philosophy. It borrowed from the great European traditions of eating together, like bouillabaisse, served family-style from a single enormous platter of fish and a tureen of broth. The aesthetics of it are beautiful, but honestly? I always felt that Alice’s world was more about trying to will a sense of community, the way sitting around my aunt’s dining room table for Thanksgiving feels like an act of willing a sense of family connection.

Besides, it’s not how any of us actually live our lives the other 360-plus days of the year, when we grab meals out, fill up on bags of chips and then don’t feel like eating in the technical sense, or rustle something up out of leftovers.

Maybe the problem is one of scale. Sitting down with seven people on a holiday might feel contrived, but sitting down to eat with my husband never does. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that our most memorable Christmas dinner was the one we shared in a Savannah motel room, on takeout Chinese spread out on an end table we moved a lamp off of to create a place to eat. It was chilly out, the TV glowed, and we had the shared promise of a new city to explore, after we finished the fried rice and knuckle-like hunks of chicken with black beans. It felt like family.

Photo by Flickr member mastermaq under Creative Commons

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NuttZo Bold BiteZ

A new, portable take on NuttZo’s popular jarred nut and seed butter flavors, Bold BiteZ will offer the health benefits of seven nuts and seeds, and will be available in the refrigerated section of premier grocers nationwide.

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ISC Gums: Gum Acacia

The new offering is 100% pure Gum Acacia Seyal. ISC has brought the color even closer to our Premium Spray Dried Gum Acacia 111, an emulsion grade 100% pure Gum Acacia Senegal. 

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Ingredion: Starch Solution

The texturizer, first available in the United States, helps manufacturers create affordable processed and imitation cheeses that boast improved shred, melt and stretch in dairy and non-dairy applications.

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Comax: Flavored Waters

The Flavored Water study was fielded in March 2017 with 500 US respondents aged 18-70+, half of which were parents of children ages 3-17.

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Disruptive Enterprises Acquires FBOMB Brand

Popular FBOMBS include Salted Chocolate Macadamia Nut Butter, Coconut & Macadamia Nut Butter Blend, MCT Oil, and House Blend Oil.

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10 Aioli Recipes for Your Day-After-Thanksgiving Turkey Sandwich

Thanksgiving is almost here, which means the day after Thanksgiving is almost here, which means you’re that much closer to the very best part of the whole holiday: leftover turkey sandwiches! Thoughts of Thanksgiving dinner might make your mouth water, but even more delectable is that tried-and-true combo of turkey and sliced bread with a little (or if it’s me, a whole lot of) mayonnaise.

I’m already a huge fan of mayo, but did you know you can make that sandwich even more flavorful by swapping in mayo’s fancy cousin, aioli? At restaurants these days, it seems like you can’t throw a frite without hitting a little metal container of aioli, and so I’ve had my fair share. But, I didn’t know until recently that the difference between mayo and aioli is that aioli, while essentially a garlicky mayo, has Mediterranean roots and is officially made with both garlic and olive oil.

Basic Aioli

Chowhound

If you’re unfamiliar with aioli, you should get started with our Basic Aioli recipe. And if you are saving your first encounter with aioli for the day-after Thanksgiving turkey sandwich, well then I truly envy you: I should’ve waited for such a special occasion!

Super Easy Garlic Aioli

Cooking With Curls

For a shortcut in aioli creation, try this recipe that uses store-bought mayonnaise—except if you want to appease your persnickety friends, make sure you use mayonnaise made from olive oil. Or, just don’t tell them, and then if they question you further, act like you didn’t hear them. Your secret is safe with me!

Roasted Garlic Aioli

Chowhound

If you’re looking for a deeper, roast-ier garlic flavor, try our Roasted Garlic Aioli recipe. You will be putting in extra oven time to roast your garlic to perfection, but if you love garlic like I do, it will be worth it to experience the joy of an utterly garlicky sandwich dressing.

Sweet Paprika Aioli

Shutterstock

Sweet paprika is a simple addition to the basic components of aioli. With our Sweet Paprika Aioli recipe, you are remedying the only problem I can see with the Thanksgiving-turkey-and-aioli sandwich: lack of color. Dress that sammy with a pop of orangey-pink, and if you are interested in smokier flavors, try substituting smoked paprika instead of sweet.

Fall Herb Aioli

Chowhound

In our Fall Herb Aioli recipe, sage and thyme add an autumnal element, perfect for tying together your Thanksgiving leftovers. This is the aioli that begs turkey to bring its buddies, cranberry sauce and slice-of-sweet-potato, to join the party between two pieces of bread.

The Best Vegan Aioli

Lauren Caris Cooks

If your Thanksgiving turkey was actually a Thanksgiving Tofurky, then you’ll not be wanting mayo or egg ingredients on your day-after sandwich. This is where marvelous aquafaba comes to the rescue! Instead of egg, this recipe uses chickpea water for its egg-like properties to give you a completely vegan version of aioli.

Lemon-Dill Aioli Sauce

Savor the Best

Usually the go-to flavors for accompanying fish, lemon and dill add tangy brightness to your sandwich dressing in this recipe. Unlike the other recipes, this one calls for avocado oil, and so, yes, it is missing the olive oil requirement of true aiolis. Should you find yourself amongst aioli dogmatists while you are eating or serving this recipe, I suggest quietly coughing the word “aioli” when describing the “lemon-dill aioli sauce” and emphasizing the word “sauce.” That oughta do it.

Chipotle Aioli

Self-Proclaimed Foodie

For a little spice on your sandwich, try this recipe which uses chipotle in adobo sauce. While the lack of olive oil prevents this from being a bonafide aioli, the use of mild-tasting vegetable oil actually helps highlight the smoky chipotle flavor.

Calabrian Chile Aioli

Chowhound

If you try our Calabrian Chile Aioli recipe, you may want to swap olive oil in for the canola oil—this way you can lean into the chiles’ Italian roots and keep this aioli true to its Mediterranean heritage. These peppers will give your sandwich a slightly fruitier spice.

Chimichurri Aioli

The Faux Martha

For the final recipe in this aioli round-up, we’re back to the store-bought mayonnaise shortcut; though, as mentioned before, you can purchase a fancier version made from olive oil. This recipe, born of the serendipitous action of combining chimichurri and mayo, will add tanginess and a little spice to your turkey sandwich. And if you’re genetically wired to dislike cilantro, then the other aforementioned aiolis will have to be your guiding light for taking the post-Thanksgiving turkey sandwich to the next level…even if you should arrive at that level very full from the day before and completely out of breath.

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Lolleez for Sore Throats

Lolleez are flat and on a stick versus a round ball, which is a potential choking hazard.

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Coconut Banana Cream Pie

When it comes to big holiday meals like Thanksgiving and Christmas, I am a big believer in multiple desserts. Specifically pies. It just doesn’t feel festive to me without some variety.

This Coconut Banana Cream Pie, a hybrid of coconut cream pie and banana cream pie, is

Since this Coconut Banana Cream Pie is actually two-for-one deal — coconut cream pie and banana cream pie — it’s perfect for those of us (ahem, me) who want a little bite of every holiday dessert offering.

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Ranch Dressing Is Finally Sold in Kegs

Ranch dressing is a universally adored and a distinctly American creation. According to a national survey, over 140 million citizens consumed the dressing in the last year alone, making it far and away the nation’s most beloved salad topper. (Got to negate the health benefits of kale and carrots, somehow!) Our reputation is so extreme that in Iceland, “Cooler Ranch” flavored Doritos are actually called “Cool American Doritos,” giving us a well-needed boost to our reputation abroad. Hey, at least we get chips right!

Hidden Valley, one of the nation’s foremost purveyors of all thing cool and creamy, is no stranger to tapping into our obsession with the herbed, mayo-based sauce. The company has previously offered many creative ways to consume the dressing, including a decadent ranch fountain, (a worthwhile addition to any wedding’s cocktail, or for whatever other occasion calls for classy your veggie-dipping). And now they may have topped their past masterpiece with the invention of a ranch keg.

That’s right, for the low price of $50 you can own five liters of ranch preloaded into a massive metal barrel. It’s enough ranch to last you through the Super Bowl, at least! Also, rest-assured, the keg’s coating meets FDA approval for consumption and will keep the ranch tasting fresh. At least your frat parties will meet basic safety standards (health, uh, not so much). Keg stands, anyone?

It’s also worth noting that Hidden Valley’s web store offers two full pages of merch, in case you haven’t started holiday shopping for all the ranch lovers in your life. Some are far more practical than a keg (the passive-aggressive socks pictured above) and other less so (the aforementioned fountain). We’re also big fans of the “Peace Love Ranch” t-shirt which is sure to make a nice addition for any unhealthy hippie’s wardrobe.

Hidden Valley

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Best Thanksgiving Vegetarian Dishes

This year for Thanksgiving, show gratitude for the meat avoiders in your life (be they ba-curious, vegetarian, or vegan) and offer them a dish that will make them happy yet still complement the holiday spread. Most of these recipes can be made ahead of time and are so tasty that even the carnivores will want to sneak a few spoonfuls. Scroll down for the best Thanksgiving vegetarian dishes we could find to plan your big day, and then kick back with your favorite glass of wine. Because you’re definitely going to need it.

1. Roasted Acorn Squash with Wild Rice Stuffing. Wild rice, cranberries, and pecans combine in an autumnal stuffing that’s tasty all on its own. But put it inside a roasted acorn squash, and you have a dish hearty enough to step in as a main.

Make-ahead tip: Make the stuffing up to two days ahead and keep it covered in the refrigerator. Roast the squash and fill it with the stuffing no more than two hours before you plan to eat.

2. Savory Onion and Leek Tart. Imagine French onion soup turned into a tart, and you’ll have an idea of what you’re in for here. With a buttery crust filled with caramelized onions, sautéed leeks, crème fraîche, and herbs, this dish is a welcome change at the holiday table.

Make-ahead tip: Bake the tart up to two days ahead and bring it to room temperature or warm it up when you’re ready to eat.

3. Mushroom and Fennel Bread Pudding. Swap out your boring old stuffing with this hearty bread pudding. With fennel, mushrooms, sage, and cheese, this recipe goes well beyond the Thanksgiving table; serve leftovers with soup and a green salad.

Make-ahead tip: The bread pudding can be baked up to a day ahead. To serve, either allow it to come to room temperature or throw it in the oven after the turkey comes out to warm it through.

4. Savory Egg Pudding. This delicate egg dish—like a crustless quiche with potatoes and herbs—is a fair swap for the turkey. The lemon zest and tarragon give it a springtime slant; consider leaving out the lemon zest and using sage or thyme in place of the tarragon for a more autumnal version.

Make-ahead tip: Bake the pudding up to two days ahead. To serve, either allow it to come to room temperature or throw it in the oven after the turkey comes out to warm it through.

5. Roasted Delicata Squash Salad. Salads often get lost amid the typical Thanksgiving bounty of starch and meat. But the roasted squash in this salad—with ricotta salata cheese, toasted pumpkin seeds, and spinach—gives it a holiday-ish air. Plus, it’s delicious.

Make-ahead tip: Wash the greens up to three days ahead and keep them wrapped in damp paper towels in a resealable plastic bag in your vegetable drawer.

6. Winter Greens Lasagne. If you have enough vegetarians coming over, you may want to make a big pasta dish. This kale-and-Swiss-chard lasagne will fill up the most voracious eater, yet the flavors are sedate enough not to overwhelm the other options on the Thanksgiving table.

Make-ahead tip: Bake the lasagne up to two days ahead and throw it in the oven after the turkey comes out to warm it through before serving.

7. Smoked Cheddar Soufflé. This recipe tames the normally savage, finicky soufflé so you can toss it in the oven while you’re carving the turkey and not think about it until it’s time to eat.

Make-ahead tip: Grate the cheese up to three days ahead and keep it stored in the refrigerator. Let the soufflé cook in the oven while the turkey is being carved, and it will be ready by the time you’re sitting down to eat.

8. Winter Greens Soup. Make a big pot of this nurturing, nourishing, nutritional soup. Its hearty, comforting flavors—from the kale, farro, garbanzo beans, and plenty more vegetables it’s filled with—complement the Thanksgiving table nicely.

Make-ahead tip: Make the soup up to three days ahead and simply warm it through before serving.

9. Celery Root and Squash Gratin with Walnut-Thyme Streusel. Liven up your sides and make something hearty enough for the veggies-only crew with this gratin. With layers of earthy celery root, sweet squash, and nutty streusel, it will offer the turkey some stiff competition for the holiday spotlight.

Make-ahead tip: Bake the gratin up to a day ahead and rewarm it in the oven after the turkey comes out.

10. Broccoli, Mushroom, and Gouda Quiche. Yes, it’s a quiche, and no, you don’t often see quiche as part of a traditional Turkey Day feast. But this sweet, earthy, cheesy quiche is different, and the vegetarians will thank you.

Make-ahead tip: The quiche can be baked up to two days ahead. To serve, either allow it to come to room temperature or throw it in the oven after the turkey comes out to warm it through.

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10 Things You Need for a Stress-Free Thanksgiving

The time is nigh. Thanksgiving just around the corner. Do you have everything you need?!

Thanksgiving is a food lover’s paradise — a time to gather and do nothing but eat. The key to a stress-free holiday is planning: A few weeks before Turkey Day, it’s wise to get your game together and figure out the state of affairs in your kitchen.

Continue reading "10 Things You Need for a Stress-Free Thanksgiving" »

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Chowhound’s 10 Thanksgiving Cooking Essentials

No holiday raises more cooking questions than Thanksgiving, and there’s no better place to ask for advice than Chowhound. Check out these Thanksgiving kitchen essentials, with links to Chowhound discussions that should help make your feast one to remember.

1. BAG IT
Brine or no brine, roasting in a bag yields super moist turkey.

2. FLIP THE BIRD
A lot of cooks swear by roasting a turkey breast-side down for the first hour before flipping. Chowhounds have all the details.

3. TAKE IT OUTSIDE
If the weather allows, use your kettle grill as an outdoor turkey-roasting oven.

4. STICK A FORK IN IT
A cooked turkey should have an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit. How do you test to see if it’s done, and how long should a cooked bird rest?

5. GRAVY GOLD
What do you do with that bag of giblets you pull out of the bird? Turn them into the best gravy ever.

6. CRANBERRIES FOR EVERY MOOD
If you’re bored with basic, Chowhounds have dozens of ideas for cranberry sauce variations.

7. BETTER BOXED STUFFING
Not making stuffing from scratch this year? Spruce up a packaged stuffing mix to make it your own.

8. STRESS-FREE SPUDS
Making mashed potatoes ahead of time is no problem, as long as you know how.

9. PUMPKIN PIE 911
You start to make a pie, but you forgot to buy evaporated milk for the filling. Chowhounds to the rescue!

10. APPLE PIE ANSWERS
What kind of apples work best for pie? Chowhounds break it down.

Photos by Chris Rochelle / CHOW.com

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Hak’s Clean Ingredient Salad Dressings

The new salad dressing line complements the existing offering while expanding it along the refrigerated dimension.

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Seafood Consumption Progress

In 2016 Americans ate 14.9 pounds of seafood per capita, while a slight over all dip from 2015, the latest numbers actually highlight a significantly positive trend in consumption.

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