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Tag: honey


creating honey pairings

19
June

brie pairing with honey

Connecticut is lucky to be the home of Red Bee Honey.  And, lucky for me, I was able to have the opportunity to visit!

bees at Red Bee Honey

Carla Marina Marchese is the beekeeper behind this iconic brand and I couldn’t ask for a better source to learn about honey!

Visiting Red Bee Honey in CT

How did she become involved with beekeeping and honey?

In 2000, Marina was unexpectedly invited to visit a neighbor’s apiary where her first taste of fresh honey from the beehive would change the course of her life. This moving experience inspired her to take a risk and quit her job, build a beehive, and acquire a colony of Italian honeybees to become a full-time beekeeper.  It was on a visit to Montalcino, Italy, “The City of Honey”, that Marina became passionate about the diverse flavor profiles of varietal honey determined by the type of nectar gathered by the honeybees.

Pairings for honeys

Today, I want to share the five honey pairings I tasted during my visit.  They were all so yummy!  I think this will help expand your imagination on how to serve different varieties of honey:

honey on a spoon 1

1.  orange blossom honey paired with goat cheese and rosemary

pairing goat cheese with honey

2.  goldenrod honey paired with strawberries

3.  tulip poplar honey paired with brie, walnut and arugula (pictured in opening photo)

4.  raspberry honey paired with dark chocolate

5.  clover honey paired with coconut and flower blossom

honey with blossom

Sounds yummy, right?  Honey is the perfect addition to a summer cheese tray!

I hope I have inspired you to look for interesting honey varieties at farmer’s markets and specialty stores (True, quality honey is not sold at grocery or big box stores!) and to think about interesting pairings!

hives at Red Bee in CT

Note:  Marina is a member of the Italian Register of Experts in the Sensory Analysis of Honey and founder of The American Honey Tasting Society.  Her best-selling book Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper chronicles her entrepreneurial journey into beekeeping.  Marina also wrote the chapter on honey in the international best-selling book Beekeeping for Dummies.

herbal tea ice pops

Herbal tea ice pops molded in glass test tubes.

Thanks for stopping by!  Remember to take pleasure in simple things, Jackie

Comments Off on creating honey pairings | field trips, food & festivities, inspiration

april book giveaway!

30
March

honey book giveaway

I have been learning quite a bit about honey and bees lately and I find them fascinating!  The result of this fascination is that I find myself seeking out local honeys at farmer’s markets and specialty stores. My current interest led me to choose a book about honey for this month’s giveaway.  I am also adding a honey dipper to the gift because a true honey connoisseur would never serve or eat their honey from a metal utensil!

While trying to eliminate processed foods, I have been using maple syrup and honey as substitutes for sugar.  A local beekeeper recently pointed out to me – honey is technically the only unprocessed of the two since maple syrup goes through a long boiling process.  Interesting!

So, the giveaway for this month is Honey by Angelo Proseperi-Porta.  Sometimes trying to substitute honey in recipes can be tricking.  This book makes it easy with everyday recipes for cooking and baking, and a section of information that includes tips on substituting honey in recipes.  This book is a great help in making a transition from sugar to honey and contains more than 85 sweet and savory recipes!

Honey recipe book

For a chance to own this wonderful book, just leave a comment and you will be entered to win!  The winner will be chosen at random at the end of April.  Good luck!

The March giveaway book seemed to speak to many people.  The interest in the book really makes me wish I had more than one copy to gift!  But, sadly, I needed to choose only one person to receive the one copy.  I did so totally at random and that person is Mary P.  Congrats to Mary and thank you to everyone who entered to win!  To read more about One Good Deed a Day:  a Journal, click here.

Instagram users, read on!  This month, the challenge is to share photos of things with a bee motif.  I love the little hobnail votive with a bee that I have in my office – isn’t it adorable?  And, it smells heavenly!  Since the giveaway this month is a book about honey, sharing photos of bees is right on theme! Use the hashtag #pleasuregram to share your photos.

Insta all about bees

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Have a wonderful weekend and remember to take pleasure in simple things, Jackie

1 comment » | good reads, monthly book giveaway

     

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