Editor's Choice: La Crema Roasting and Packaging

I start every single morning with coffee, and prefer to make a cup myself rather than stopping at Starbucks. I usually just reach for a blend from Trader Joe’s, but I love trying new coffees to liven up my morning.

At the Living and Giving Show at the Chicago Merchandise Mart this week, I picked up a pack of coffee from La Crema Roasting and Packaging, which is based in West Chester, OH. The Blah Blah Blend is part of La Crema’s Girlfriends line of coffee, which includes four blends flavored with chocolate, spices or nuts. The Blah Blah blend is flavored like a vanilla cupcake frosted with almond icing, and was great with just a splash of milk. I drink my coffee iced during the warmer months, and this blend translated well to an iced version. I never add sugar to coffee, and it was a nice change from my more bitter drinks to sip a coffee featuring hints of sweetness.

La Crema uses 100-percent Colombian coffee and packages the Girlfriends line in bright green, pink or black packaging with a café design on the front. It would be perfect as part of a brunch gift basket or to serve at a girls only shower or other event.

- Amy

Editor's Choice: Sahale Snacks Tuscan Almonds with Parmesan and Herbs

When it comes to snacking, I’m generally looking for two things — crunchy and cheesy. My snack preferences usually lead me to cheese popcorn or cheese and crackers, but sometimes I want something a little more upscale. When Sahale Snacks’ Tuscan Almonds with Parmesan and Herbs crossed my desk today, I  opened them as a post-lunch snack.

The seasoned nuts are part of Sahale’s newest collection, which also includes Barbeque Almonds with Mild Chipotle and Ranch and Southwest Cashews with Chile and Cheddar. I didn’t open either of the other bags, since I was drawn to the promise of salty Parmesan and herbs like basil and thyme.

The nuts provide a definite crunch and the seasonings are baked onto them, forming a rough coating. Also in the seasoning mix is sun-dried tomatoes, red pepper and oregano. Each serving offers five grams of protein, calcium, iron and fiber, so it’s a healthier choice than chips. And it’s tasty — the mix of toppings evokes Italian dishes and they’re a fun twist on straight up almonds. Recommended for cocktail parties or straight out of the bag at your desk.

Editor's Choice: Stonehouse 27

Despite taking an Indian cooking class a couple years ago, I still reach for Grub Hub to place an order whenever I’m craving rich saag paneer, crispy dosas and tangy chicken tikka masala. It turns out I don’t always have to — I can reach for a jar of Stonehouse 27, which offers quality Indian flavors, and whip up dishes at home.

When a sampler box arrived at the office, I grabbed mild Cashews and Cream and medium Tomato and Chilies. At the grocery store I picked up blocks of tofu and garlic naan to serve alongside the basmati rice I always have in my pantry. I put the rice on to cook and fried the tofu while I heated the oven. Once the tofu was golden, I inverted the jars of sauce over two saucepans and placed the naan in the oven — dinner was ready in 20 minutes.

It couldn’t have been an easier dinner to make, and since each jar makes four servings, we had plenty leftover for work lunches this week. Our favorite was the Cashews and Cream, which is made with onions, garlic, paprika and cashews. Tomato and Chilies offered accents of earthy cinnamon.

But you don’t have to go the traditional route like I did. Stonehouse 27’s website offers easy recipes for its sauces, which also include Dates and Tamarind and Cilantro and Coconut. Try them as a pasta sauce, in nachos, or with mussels. Cook with veggies and top with an egg. Use as a marinade. The sauces are incredibly versatile, and one jar can go a long way.

Founder Sharon Fernandes, who grew up in India, wanted to bring a healthier edge to Indian cooking. The sauces are made with fresh herbs and produce, agave nectar instead of sugar and have no added salt. Finally, Indian food without the guilt — and in less time that it would take for your delivery to arrive.

— Amy

Editor's Choice: French Food Connection

The French Food Connection rolled into Chicago yesterday, the first stop of a three-city tour bringing French confections, cheeses and other treats to people in the food industry. The tour stops in Las Vegas on April 13 and San Francisco on April 15.

The Fancy Food editors attended the show and we left with full tummies and a lot of great new products to share with you. Below are a couple of our favorites:

• French Cheese Club’s Crème de Chaource
Crème de Chaource, a new product from Didier Lincet, is both versatile and delicious. The creamy, mild cheese is light and can be used to replace cream or butter in sauces. It can be mixed with pasta, spread between slices of bread for grilled cheese, and more. It also makes a great fondue.

• Mag’m’s Macarons
Hailed by some foodies as the “new cupcake,” macarons are a delicate French confection. Not to be confused with the sweet coconut clusters, macarons are made with almonds, sugar and egg whites and feature a crisp shell with smooth filling. Mag’m offers the delicacies frozen, so it’s possible to have French flavors any time of day. We liked the raspberry and coconut passion fruit flavors.

• Le Manoir des Abeilles’ Lavender Honey
Le Manoir’s honey is entirely unlike anything you’ve ever tasted. Raw and unpasteurized, the honey is creamy and packs great flavor. Le Manoir also offers flower, acacia and chestnut tree flavors, but the lavender really stands out.

• Chocmod USA’s fruit pates
Chocmod has been selling truffles in the U.S. for 20 years. While the truffles are undeniably tasty, we’re still thinking about the fruit pates. Jelly-like squares coated in sugar, the pates come in apricot and blackberry. The blackberry tastes like you just popped a fresh berry in your mouth.

Editor's Choice: Granna's Gourmet

A few summers ago I got into pickling, and since then I've been whipping up batches of pickled beets, green beans, cucumbers, and other farmers market veggies to snack on or incorporate into meals. I’ve always loved pickled vegetables and relishes, but have even more of an appreciation for them now that I know how much work goes into creating great ones.

Granna’s Gourmet, based in South Carolina, offers Lowcountry pickles perfect for adding to Southern-style dishes, using on sandwiches, or eating straight from the jar. I recently brought home a jar of Bread and Butter pickles, and they’ve been a big hit in my house. Jarred with mustard seeds and onion slices, the crunchy rounds are a nice balance of sweet and sour. They’re delicious layered in tuna sandwiches or as a side to burgers.

Granna’s also offers sweet onion petals, bread and butter pickle relish and sweet onion relish, all of which I imagine would add some Lowcountry brightness to everyday sandwiches or salads. Bread and Butter pickles retail for $7 for a 16 oz. jar.

-- Amy

Editor's Choice: King's Cupboard Bourbon Caramel Sauce

I grew up in a family of ice cream lovers — we always had several flavors stowed in the freezer at any given time. But as much as I loved ice cream and creating sundaes, I wouldn’t go near hot fudge, finding it too rich and, well, chocolately. At school sundae parties, I was the odd one out when I opted for strawberry, while at home my go-to topping was caramel. I loved it on vanilla or coffee ice cream and would top it with sprinkles or nuts.

Though I’ve since changed my stance on hot fudge, I still love caramel. It’s versatile, and can be used in lattes, desserts, or even savory dishes. So I was excited to take home a jar of King's Cupboard Bourbon Caramel Sauce, anticipating a delicious sundae to end my dinner. It's one of King's Cupboards new flavors, along with Irish Cream Chocolate Sauce and Creme de Menthe Chocolate Sauce.

Not only is the sauce smooth with a nice caramel flavor, the addition of bourbon is positively genius. It saves the sauce from being too sweet, and was actually more prominent than I’d anticipated — alcoholic tastes are often barely noticeable. Bourbon is my drink of choice, so I loved it, but the sauce isn’t for anyone who doesn’t appreciate the rich complexities of a nice whiskey.

The jar offers suggestions for using the sauce from a crepe filling to fondue, but it was perfect and simple dropped over a bed of vanilla ice cream. My childhood self probably wouldn’t like the mix of caramel and bourbon, but my adult self? Give me this over hot fudge any day.

—Amy

Editor's Choice: Oogie's Gourmet Popcorn

When it comes to snacking, my taste buds are oriented toward salty all the way. I’ll pick pretzels over ice cream any day, so when a delivery of gourmet popcorn from Oogie's Snacks arrived at the office, I knew I was going to be ruining my lunch.

Oogie’s Snacks, which is based in Denver, uses a proprietary hybrid of non-GMO corn as a base for its addictive gourmet popcorn. The company was founded in 2005 by a group of college friends looking to develop a healthier nibble — the popcorn is all natural, gluten-free and 100-percent whole grain, so you don’t have to feel guilty. Recently revamped Oogie’s packaging debuted at the Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco.

There are currently seven flavors of Oogie’s available, with more to come this year, and no, this isn’t your basic Smartfood. While there are classics like movie lovers butter and white cheddar, Oogie’s also offers creative flavors like spicy chipotle and lime and cracked pepper and Asiago.

I tried a couple of varieties, snacking on the sun dried tomato and Parmesan while watching TV one night and demolishing a bag of the smoked Gouda one week at the office, and can see Oogie’s entering my snacking rotation. Each flavor is unique and unexpected — the smokiness of the Gouda is really appealing, while the sun dried tomato is sweet and garlicky. The white cheddar picks up a hint of sweetness from onion powder, while the Hatch chili con queso, with red chili peppers and cheddar cheese, tastes like a taco in popcorn form. The flavors are strong without being overwhelming, and while you’ll end up with sticky fingers, it’s totally worth it.

— Amy

Editor's Choice: Italian Foods Corporation

I’m part of a food lovers’ book club, and we read, as you might expect, memoirs and other books about food. At our last meeting we read Garlic and Sapphires, Ruth Reichl’s memoir about her adventures as the restaurant critic for the New York Times, a book I first read — and loved — a couple years ago when I actually was a dining critic for a newspaper in Washington.

Our next book is The Man Who Ate Everything, by Jeffrey Steingarten, and it aims to hit close to home as well. After being named the Vogue food critic, Steingarten attempted to turn his dislike for certain foods, like clams, into love. This premise will carry over into our book club dinner party — we each have to make a dish that we hated when we were kids but now love.

While our dinner is still some time away, I’ve already begun thinking about what to make. Today’s product, a bell pepper and eggplant spread from the Italian Foods Corporation, has reminded me of a food that I used to avoid but now go out of my way to eat – peppers.

While I’m still not sold on green peppers (and this is something I’ve learned I’m not alone in), red peppers are one of my favorite foods. Served raw or roasted, they can be sweet or smoky, and they’re versatile ingredients. I regularly buy them at markets with no purpose in mind and create recipes around them.

So when this product landed on my desk a couple weeks ago, I took it home that night to try it. The spread is made from Italian bell peppers and eggplant in La Spezia in the Liguria region of Italy. I’ve used it to top slices of baguette and mixed it with spaghetti, and it’s delicious in both. It would be ideal on an antipasto tray, or used as a condiment on an Italian-inspired sandwich. My jar is just about empty, so I’m going to have to track down another one pretty soon. While I’m still not sure what to make for the dinner party, I think I’m on the right track.

— Amy

Editor's Choice: Bigg Riggs

We all love tastes that remind us of home, so for my first editor’s choice blog, I chose two products from Bigg Riggs, a West Virginia-based company that sells jams, BBQ sauce, apple butter and other items at farmer’s markets in Northern Virginia. I hadn’t tried the products before, but I have a fondness for that part of the country, since I lived in Washington, DC for four years before relocating to Chicago this summer. I love the southern-tinged tastes you can find in that area, plus the company has a great back-story, making it a no-brainer to sample the products.

Bigg Riggs is the brainchild of Calvin Riggleman, who would reminisce about his family’s farm in Hampshire County, West Virginia to his army buddies while he was stationed in Iraq in 2003. The farm has been in the Riggleman family since the 1940s, and Riggleman’s fellow soldiers gave him the idea to jar fruits and sell them at farmers markets. Soon he added vegetables and the product line grew, eventually being sold at Whole Foods stores in Northern Virginia.

I started with the Hot Pepper Jelly, which comes in a 12 oz. jar. The jelly is the number one selling Bigg Riggs product, and with good reason — it’s a delicious concoction of sweet and heat that’s perfect slathered on a cracker with a bed of cream cheese. It’s accessible for different palates, so you’ll still appreciate it if spicy food isn’t your thing.

I also tried the Strawberry Biscuit Fixer, a charmingly named classic jam that has as many uses as you can think up. I tried a bite right out of the 12 oz. jar, and it has a fresh-made taste that isn’t too sweet. Try it on morning toast, in a nostalgic peanut butter and jelly sandwich or even as an ice cream topping. Jams are made with pure cane sugar and all Bigg Riggs products are made with all-natural ingredients.

Each jar is $6, and you can learn more about Bigg Riggs on their web site.

— Amy