I was working last night, and I decided I needed a snack. I opened the fridge and saw this huge leftover bag of baby carrots that needed to be eaten soon, so I grabbed it. I wanted something to dip it in, but wanted to at least pretend to be somewhat healthy, so I didn’t want to grab the Ranch dressing. So instead, I grabbed the jar of peanut butter (it has protein, see?) and went back into my office.

A few minutes later, Luke comes in to ask me something, and recoils as if I were hunched over my laptop, spooning the contents of the garbage can into my gaping maw. Instead, I was crunching on baby carrots and peanut butter. “What are you eating?” he asked me, disgusted. I thought it was pretty self-evident, but I answered him anyway. His response? “Ew. That’s like… weird gross.”

Weird gross? Really? Baby carrots and peanut butter are weird gross?

I was very confused, so I did what I usually do what I’m confused, and I asked Twitter. I got some responses along the lines of, “Do you mean peanut butter and celery?,” which made me laugh, because, yes. I just got confused between the tiny orange thing and the big stalky green thing. Luckily, Keith was on my side and informed me that Owen eats it. Facebook, however, was not as kind.

Some of my responses included, “NO. No they are not. Freak.,” “Not really…PEAS and carrots, PB and celery. Pb and apple…,” and the worst one of all, “Kona, Kinda sounds like you are w/child again?” Aaand, cut to me on my knees, screaming at the sky, “Nooooooooooooo!” Bob, however, agreed with me, making my CliqueClack Food respondents 2/2 in my favor, which is heartening.

I also got some interesting ideas. One friend suggested that I “try PB, carrots and honey with a little red chili powder in the food processor.” It sounds intriguing, but what do I do then? Put it on a cracker, scoop it out and eat it with my bare hands? Slather it all over my face for a rejuvenating mask? The possibilities are endless! My cousin even reminded me that our grandmother used to love peanut butter and pickle sandwiches, which always terrified me as a child.

So my question to you is two-fold: One, am I completely crazy for thinking that peanut butter and carrots are a snack? And, what’s your favorite peanut butter-based snack?

Is there anyone who doesn’t love cheese? OK, I’m not talking to you vegans, unless you count that fake soy cheese as remotely edible. But the rest of us love cheese. You don’t know how happy I was when I got pregnant and my lactose intolerance mysteriously disappeared. Owen’s birthday marked a day much more special than just becoming a mom — I could eat cheese again!

Many of us entertain to celebrate the New Year, and I’ve already given you nineteen ideas for easy and festive appetizers you can prepare. Now, the CliqueClack Food staff has banded together to give you some of our favorite cheese platters. After all, everyone should have a little Clique in their New Year.

Bob says, “I really like serving jelly with cheese. In particular there is a hot pepper cranberry jelly that is amazing with both brie (or St. Andre, another favorite) and extremely sharp cheddar. I also like to serve a selection of hard cheeses (Gruyere, Manchego, etc) with some paté.”

Keith loves meat with cheese too, like assorted hard cheeses (some spicy!) with cured meats, like salami, gourmet sausages and prosciutto.

Cate says in Portugal, where she lives, “people like to serve cheese with plain cakes, like an un-iced pound cake — sounds really weird but it’s totally delicious. It’s especially good with super-soft buttery cheeses. It’s that sweet/salty combination that makes it work, like Bob’s cheese and jelly or that feta with peppered honey. Other than that they pretty much just do a basic antipasto platter — cubes of cheese, slices or chunks of prosciutto, olives, fresh crusty bread, and lots of wine!”

Back to the jelly with cheese: my brother has been serving brie with apple butter to great raves, and two favorites of mine are Manchego with fig jam and Gouda with roasted onion and garlic jam.

Kona says, “I like to have an assortment of hard and soft cheeses with fruit, like grapes and Granny Smith apples. Blue cheese and granny smiths are great together. I also always make sure to have goat cheese and Dubliner on hand.”

Since Owen and I don’t eat wheat, we’ll use rice crackers, but like Kona, fruit works best. Here are some of my favorite combinations:

• figs and feta
• Gala apples and gouda
• red grapes and gorgonzola
• strawberries with goat cheese

Kelly, the new kid on the block here at CliqueClack, loves to serve Alouette garlic and herb spread with crackers. Her family also loves Cabot extra sharp cheddar, and they will accept no substitute.

Jen‘s got some cheese and bread pairings for us (but why would we expect anything different from the genius behind the “Let’s Get Baked” column): “We like to pair Camembert with a good crusty Italian bread, sliced pears, and OLIVES!  But gorgonzola melted onto bread slices under the broiler is always a great favorite, especially paired with a nice Shiraz.”

A few other super combinations that are easy to put together for guests:

• Manchego, Marcona almonds and raw honey (you could also do a fried goat cheese with this combo)
• Goat cheese, olives and roasted red pepper
• fresh mozzarella with sun-dried tomato tapenade

Even Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa herself, got together with us to share some of her cheese platter ideas. OK, not really, but the link is out there for the world to see and I had you there for a minute, didn’t I?

If you’re serving wine with your cheese appetizers, we’ve discovered several rosé Cote du Rhones that go amazingly well with cheese. You also can’t miss with a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

There are no rules for the cheese platter, but we hope that some of our favorites will make your New Year’s gathering even more special. Happy New Year from CliqueClack Food, and be sure to share your favorite combinations in the comments!

One word for you folks: Saltimbocca. Sage is one of my favorite herbs, and prosciutto is one of the greatest foods on Earth (I often like to joke, well half-joke, that my favorite three words are: wrapped. in. prosciutto.). It should be no surprise, then, that I am a huge fan of Saltimbocca. There is something about mixing the tender salty prosciutto with the strong perfumey sage that make a perfect dish.

Saltimbocca is a great dish because of it’s versatility. Because the real stars are the sage and the prosciutto, it can be made with just about any meat. I’ve seen recipes that use chicken, veal, pork, and even fish with the classic combination.

Saltimbocca is not the only beautiful marriage of these two tasty ingredients. One of my favorite appetizers to make is prosciutto and Gruyere pinwheels. It’s a simple and easy recipe, with the two title ingredients rolled in a sheet of puff pastry along with fresh sage leaves. They make for a great presentation and are just a little bit fancy (aside from being delicious).

This recipe for braised pork shanks with prosciutto and sage looks delicious and will definitely find its way to my “to-make” list. For me, sage always triggers happy memories of Thanksgiving stuffing, and this recipe puts these two ingredients together in just that, a stuffing. Sounds great. There are a couple other great recipes for this perfect pair, including Emeril’s prosciutto and mushroom ravioli with fried sage. How about something a little different? You can even have these two ingredients with fruit! This recipe for roasted pears with sage and crisp prosciutto sounds pretty awesome, and super easy.

Are you as big a fan of this flavor combo as I am?

I discovered this one serendipitously, like all good discoveries seem to be. I was planning on making my perfect hummus recipe today for a munchy appetizer for our guests. Alas, I did not have nearly enough lemon juice to make that happen in any tasty way, so I began searching the internet for a recipe for chick pea dip with no lemon.

Again with the alas, because there were none to be found. A digression, if I may: I’m so going to invent that recipe, just you wait. But today, nope. I settled on a recipe that used just a little bit of lemon, chick pea and cilantro dip.

As I was making this, a funny thing happened. Not as funny to Keith, since he was the one who ran out to get some, but it turns out that I didn’t have enough lemon juice for this recipe either. Finding out when the recipe is 90% done is not advantageous in any way, I might add.

It definitely needed more lemon, and since Keith was pretty horrified at the taste of the dip, he graciously volunteered to save the appetizer. Now here’s the discovery: I needed way more lemon juice than the recipe called for — at least double — to make the dip taste good.

When I served it, it was good, delicious even. But not without heaping amounts of lemon. Why? Because chick peas and lemon are a perfect pair. Not convinced? There are literally thousands of recipes out there to back me up. Here’s a sampling:

• Rachael Ray’s lemon-garlic chickpea dip
• Cooking Light’s chickpea stew scented with lemon and cumin
• Chickpea soup with lemon
• Chickpea and quinoa salad with lemon and tahini
• Heidi Swanson’s lemony chickpea stir-fry

A while ago I wrote about my Peach upside down cake. I am sure you all tried it and found it to be as good as I said it was. Well, this weekend I made one for my wife and topped it with huckleberry ice cream. I made this for my wife and she did not think it would be very good.

The combination of the peaches and yellow cake are incredibly good, but the huckleberry is a tart wild blueberry. When you combine the two with the cake and the vanilla ice cream these two different fruits combine to form an incredible taste explosion on your taste buds.

Huckleberries are great because it is so much fun to get out in the hills and enjoy a day of hiking and picking them. They can be used to make jam, toppings for ice cream, pancakes, waffles, or just eaten by themselves.

If you do go out and pick your own, I recommend you make your own ice cream with them. There are many good and inexpensive ice cream makers available and the ice cream is so much better than what you can buy in the store.

Making your own ice cream is fun and really pretty simple. There are many recipes available on the net and most of the ice cream makers come with a recipe book. This is the one I use for making my Huckleberry ice cream. This will also work well with any fruit as well.

Ingredients:
4 egg yolks
1/2 pint  milk
1/2 pint  double/heavy cream
4 oz  sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or according to taste)
1 pint Huckleberries

First of all, beat and mix together the egg yolks and sugar until thick. Separately, pour the milk into a saucepan and scald it (bring slowly up to boiling point). Pour the hot milk into the egg yolks and sugar mix stirring continuously. Then pour the mixture back into the pan and heat gently, stirring until the custard thickens — DO NOT BRING TO A BOIL OR IT WILL PROBABLY CURDLE. When you can see a film form over the back of your spoon, it’s time to remove the saucepan from the heat. Leave to cool.

This is the custard base and one you can use in many other ice cream recipes where you want a rich, creamy ice cream.

When the custard base is cold, stir in the cream, the vanilla extract, and the huckleberries. I like to slightly crush some of the berries before adding them to release more of the juice into the mix. then transfer the whole mixture into a ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Before you stop reading this post, assuming I’ve completely lost my mind — and my taste buds — give me a chance. No, I am not pregnant — really! — but I do enjoy strong, interesting flavors and this combination just about knocked my socks off. Let me explain how I even thought to try strawberries and salami together.

I had just gotten back from our CSA Farm with a nice pint of fresh-picked strawberries. I was munching on them as I was preparing dinner. Owen was snacking on salami (all natural, no nitrites) so it didn’t take long for me to pop a slice or two into my giant munch-hole.

Calebrese salami is slightly spicy, as it’s got crushed red pepper flakes speckled throughout its slices. Something about the salty, spicy meat and the sweet, slightly tart strawberries made such a lovely pairing. It’s like every section of my tongue was firing at the same time — and I liked it!

Immediately I thought that someone else must have tried and died for this delectable combination. It could be a traditional Italian pairing, for all I know. So of course I turned to Google, the great and powerful Oz, and… nothing. I just may be the only person who’s ever eaten Calebrese salami and strawberries together as a snack.

Before you dismiss it, consider that I may have well invented one of the most appealing taste combinations… ever. Try a spinach and strawberry salad with salami slices or stab some mozzarella cheese, a basil leaf, a strawberry and salami on a toothpick — what an appetizer!

So try it, and then tell me I’m nuts!

If you grew up in America, you’ve likely eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or two in your day.  In honor of Memorial Day, I thought I’d pay respect to the soldiers who popularized this snackalicious treat during World War II.  Peanut butter actually dates back to the late nineteenth century, when remarkably, it was  marketed as a health food due to it’s nutritious qualities and ease of digestion.  In the early part of the twentieth century, it was held in high esteem, and was considered a delicacy reserved for the wealthy.  It was served in tea houses along side Early Grey tea and cucumber sandwiches.  However, it’s short-lived seat on the throne of the “high food” was over when manufacturers of the product wanted to expand it’s appeal.

Manufacturers began adding sugar to peanut butter and it soon became a treat targeted toward children.   Needless to say it took off right away.  Simultaneously in the late ’20s Gustav Papendick developed a method for slicing loaves of bread and packaging them, thus making it easier for small children to help themselves without having to use a sharp knife or the help of an adult.  Peanut butter was a nutritious and inexpensive source of food and with the onset of the Depression, it became a staple in the diet of kids everywhere.

A decade later, when the second World War broke out in 1939, both peanut butter and jelly were on the military rations list.  American soldiers began adding jelly to their peanut butter sandwiches in order to make them more palatable.  And because peanut butter was a good source of protein, it stayed the course and fed the soldiers for years to come.  After the war ended, returning servicemen popularized the PB&J combo and sales of both skyrocketed.

Today, variations of peanut butter and jelly abound!  Perhaps you’ve sampled a PBB&H (peanut butter, banana and honey) sandwich. I have and it’s delicious.  Or maybe you’re a fan of grilled PB&J’s, when the bread is toasted just so, and the peanut butter is oozing out the sides.  Better still, is the invention of the fluffernutter, which uses marshmallow cream in place of jelly.  Peanut butter is now available in many forms — crunchy, creamy, low fat, reduced fat and even sugar free. The varieties and combinations are endless, but one thing is for sure, good old peanut butter and jelly will always be an American Classic, whose celebrity is owed to the soldiers who we honor on this Memorial Day.

It’s getting to be the summer season, which means cookouts, barbecues, and days so hot you don’t want to cook. It also means vine ripe, juicy, delicious tomatoes. I used to be a tomato hater myself. I’ve always liked tomato sauces and cooked tomatoes, but raw tomatoes somehow didn’t do it for me. These days, however, I can’t get enough of high quality, perfectly ripe tomatoes.

Tomatoes go so well with so many things, but I think that its real best friend is basil. Whether it’s a caprese salad, a tomato basil pasta sauce or fresh baked margherita pizza, tomatoes and basil really bring out the best in each other.

My parents made a great caprese salad this past weekend for a family cookout. I love the blending of flavors in this simple dish, with the balsamic vinegar melding the flavors of the fresh tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella cheese. My father really elevated the classic salad by adding some finely sliced rings of shallot. It added a great bite to the dish and made it special.

On really hot days during the summer, there is a great tomato sauce that I like to make. It’s super simple and doesn’t require any cooking aside from boiling pasta. For the sauce itself all you have to do is dice some tomatoes up fine and mix them with a bunch of basil (to taste) cut in a chiffonade. Add a couple cloves of chopped garlic (or one if you’re not as much of a garlic freak as I am), and then mix everything together with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Everything marinates together and is delicious tossed with your favorite pasta and some grated parmesan. Fresh mozzarella works well here too.

Even when I make a classic slow-cooked tomato sauce for pasta, I love adding fresh basil (and lots of it) right at the end of the cooking. It brightens up the sauce and adds a ton of flavor, even more so than adding dried basil.

And let’s face it: who can say no to a piping hot slice of thin crust, cheese-bubbling pizza with tomatoes and fresh basil on it? Sometimes pizza tends to get overly complicated with creative sauces and toppings. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good thai chicken or barbeque pizza, but sometimes I just need a nice slice of margherita to bring me home.

What are your favorite ways to use tomatoes and basil?

It seems like every now and then a certain food becomes very trendy. A while back it was sun dried tomatoes, then portabello mushrooms, and a couple years ago it seemed like Manchego cheese was on every menu I looked at. These days, the pomegranate has pierced the food zeitgeist. I’m not complaining, mind you. The pomegranate is a delicious, and fascinating fruit, with its arils full of tart dark red juice. It’s also really healthy for you, full of antioxidants.

Since it has become so trendy, I’m starting to see pomegranates pop up in some really interesting places and as such I have discovered an amazing thing: pomegranate and chocolate go together amazingly well!

My first experience with pomegranate and chocolate came in an unexpected place — the office. One of my colleagues brought in a small box of treats. It was a mystery as to what they were at first. They were clearly something covered in chocolate, but as soon as I tasted one I knew what it was. There is no mistaking the powerfully tart flavor of the pomegranate. I never would have thought to cover pomegranate arils with chocolate, but I was amazed at how good the combination was. The dark chocolate, with it’s rich and semisweet flavor blended very well with the bright, tart pomegranate. It definitely worked really well.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, when I tell you that I jumped at the opportunity to buy some pomegranate chip ice cream when I saw it in the super market. Haagen Dazs makes it, and it was just as good as the chocolate covered arils… maybe even better. The tart and sweet ice cream was full of dark chocolate chips, adding the bitter richness to set off the pomegranate. It was delicious.

If you get a chance, I recommend seeking out this combination and trying it for yourself.