Whether for brunch or a midday snack, Clif Family Solar Grown Honey Spreads, Organic Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Almonds, and Rosemary Roasted Almonds & Pistachios, make for a perfect pick-me-up.
A myriad of honeys certainly abound on supermarket shelves. But Clif Family Solar Grown Honey Spreads definitely stand out. Not only do they pack a wallop of flavor, but they are made with honey specifically harvested from bee hives located on or around pollinator-friendly solar farms.
It’s a concerted effort to encourage both clean energy and biodiversity. After all, flowering meadows planted under solar farms not only create cooler microclimates that improve energy efficiency, but foster thriving beneficial insect populations.
Talk about a sweet win-win.
I had a chance to try samples of three different Solar Grown Honey Spreads ($10 for a 5.5-ounce jar), each smooth, creamy, and thick enough to slather on most anything with a knife.
Clif Family Solar Grown Honey Spreads come in both sweet and spicy varieties.
For added oomph, they are blended with spices sourced from Burlap & Barrel, a public benefit corporation that partners with small farmers to improve their livelihoods.
A fresh-baked batch of madeleines made with and finished with Adagio Teas Whipped Cinnamon Honey.(Photo by Carolyn Jung)
Flavored Whipped Honeys From Adagio
Add a unique punch of sweetness to a cup of tea or favorite baking recipes with Adagio Teas’ flavored whipped honeys in Cinnamon, Chocolate or Matcha.
I had a chance to try samples recently of these thick, spreadable honeys. The Matcha is sweet with a slightly astringent and grassy note that lingers. The Chocolate is quite floral from the honey, which dominates, with the chocolate, itself, more a background player. Ooh, the Cinnamon is like a Red Hot, spicy on the palate with a pronounced cinnamon warmth.
The Matcha is a fun way to sweeten a matcha latte. The Chocolate can be drizzled over pancakes, waffles or marble pound cake. The cinnamon is delicious in any black tea. Or heavenly in a batch of these Honey Madeleines by Pastry Chef Claudia Fleming. The cinnamon taste in the madeleines will end up fairly subtle unless you add more oomph with a pinch or two of ground cinnamon to the batter. For a final touch, enjoy the warm madeleines dribbled with more of the Cinnamon Whipped Honey.
Thick and spreadable, whipped flavored honeys.(Photo by Carolyn Jung)
A 4-ounce jar of any of the flavors is $10; a 12-ounce jar is $19.
Onsuri Extra-Virgin Olive Oils From Jordan
When you think of quality extra-virgin olive oils, the countries of Spain, Italy, and Greece readily spring to mind, along with the Golden State of California.
But Ziad Bilbeisi wants you to get to know olive oil from his native Jordan.
Starting from scratch in a desolate, high-desert area of his native Jordan, he has created the largest family-owned olive estate in that country that includes a state-of-the-art, solar-powered boutique olive oil company, Onsuri.
Onsuri’s Discovery Set includes four small bottles of different extra-virgin olive oils.(Photo by Carolyn Jung)
All the olive oils are graded “extra-premium,” a distinction few olive oils in the world have, according to Bilbeisi. It means they contain less than a 0.3 percent level of unstable fatty acids, and are extremely high in polyphenol compounds, which are powerful antioxidants.
