Pineapple Tarts

Were you looking for recipes for Pineapple Tarts? Well, what do you know! A search on Recipe Zaar brought forth six pineapple tart recipes. You can give them all a try or pick one that you think will yield you the best pineapple tarts. Happy baking.

Create Your Very Own Cookbook

Most of us have our recipes in a physical recipe book. With the Internet being so readily available, having our recipes filed in an online recipe seems like a logical next step. But how do we go about it? Some of us set up blogs.

Would you like to have an online Cookbook? Yes, your very own Cookbook where you can file in recipes you come across online. Recipezaar has such a Cook book. Why not sign up for it and make collecting and referring to recipes much easier.

A Tomato Dish

Here's an easy tomato dish - a salad, a side dish or an appetizer. Your choice.

Caprese Tomato Salad
by Zola
www.dinnerwithzola.com/recipes

Serves 4

4 ripe medium-sized tomatoes (You choose your favorite type. For presentation, you probably want round ones as opposed to Roma or pear shaped.)
4 balls of fresh buffalo mozzarella
Italian dressing (You choose your favorite. Homemade or commercial.)
Basil for garnish
Salt and pepper to taste

The amounts of ingredients for this recipe are approximate. Amounts depend on how large the tomatoes, how big the mozzarella, and how much dressing you want.

All you have to do is slice the tomatoes into one-third-inch slices. Same with the mozzarella balls. (You can save the ends of both for something else.) Place the slices on the plate by alternating the tomatoes with the mozzarella: red, white, red, white.

Now drizzle on dressing. A couple of tablespoons per person usually does it, but it's up to you. You can leave this to marinate for up to an hour or you can proceed to the chiffonade (below) right away.

When you're ready to serve, take the basil leaves and remove them from the stem. Stack the leaves on top of each other. You're going to make what's called a chiffonade. Stacking the basil leaves just makes it easier. Slice the basil on a diagonal, very thinly. You'll have basil "ribbons" or a chiffonade. Sprinkle them on your tomatoes and mozzarella. Sprinkle on salt and pepper to taste and you're ready to go.

This makes a quick light appetizer that's pretty in the summer. Or it can be a side salad or even an Italian side dish to go great with grilled summer foods.

How to Pair Food and Wine

Are you planning a dinner party but not sure what wine goes with what food?

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According to Arcamax, with a basic understanding of wine and food combinations and some creativity of your own, you won't go wrong.

The first thing to remember is that there really are no strict rules for pairing a particular wine with a type of food. If something tastes good, go with it -- and enjoy.

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Arcamax offers a few pointers to get you started:

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1. Try to match a wine's sweetness, flavor, acidity, etc., with that of the food you are pairing it with as your wine is meant to complement the taste of the dish, not overpower it.

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2. It is not a strict rule to match the color of the wine with the color of the meat.

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3. We have often heard to serve red wine at room temperature. In actual fact, red wines should be server slightly below room temperature (65° - 60°) with the exception being light bodied red wines. These benifit from being chilled slightly. White wines can be served chilled (55° - 60°) but not cold; this is to be left for Champagnes and sparkling wines.

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4. Try matching a wine with foods from the same region, for example, choose an Italian wine to go with an Italian dish.

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The above tips should give you some confidence to making your own combinations but before you do, you may want to check out the recommended food and wine combinations from Arcamax.

Hazelnut Chocolate Brownies

Here's a great recipe to try this Christmas.

Hazelnut Chocolate Brownies



Ingredients
150g dark cooking chocolate, broken into pieces
175g butter
175g soft brown sugar
3/4 tsp vanilla essence
3 eggs Sifted twice:
135g plain flour
80g cocoa powder
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp salt
100g roasted hazelnuts, very coarsely chopped

Method
Line a 21cm square baking tin with lightly greased aluminium foil. Preheat oven to 180°C.

Melt butter and chocolate over simmering hot water until both chocolate and butter melts into a paste.

Remove from heat and add in sugar. Stir until sugar dissolves. Leave aside to cool.

Add eggs, one at a time into the chocolate butter paste and add in essence, sifted flour and cocoa mixture.

Stir in hazelnuts.

Pour batter into prepared tin and bake for 30 minutes.

Allow brownies to cool for 10–15 minutes then cut into slices.

Source: Kuali...The Star