History of Conversation Hearts

With Valentine's Day upon us, I thought it would be fun to post a short history on Valentine's Conversation hearts.

The Early American Colonists started the tradition of making homemade candies with love notes scratched into them. The New England Confectionary Company(Necco) expanded on this idea and created the conversation heart in the mid-1800s.

in 1860, Daniel Chase, brother of Necco founder Oliver Chase, invented the process to print motto candies. The candies were originally not in the shape of hearts, but in the shapes of cockles- small, scallop shaped candies wrpped in paper with sayings printed on the paper. In 1900, candies with sayings inscribed directly on them were invented, call Sweet Hearts. Originally the sayings were rather long, but over time they became shorter and more to the point, such as "Be Mine." Every year new saying are added to the candy mix.

Today, conversation hearts are one of the most popular Valentine's Day candy. They are especially popular with school children. This year, about 8 billion hearts will be produced. That's enough candy to stretch from Rome, Italy to Valentine, Arizona and back 20 times. The peak selling season of the conversation hearts only lasts about 6 weeks, but confectioners produce the candy for 11 months of the year!

I hope you enjoyed this brief history. This information is from the website www.candyusa.org/Candy/hearts.asp.

Chicken Piccata with Gnocchi

A few nights ago I made a Chicken Piccata recipe from Giada de Laurentis' book Everyday Italian and also available on the Food Network website. I served it over top of gnocchi. The piccata sauce is a very nice lemon sauce that went very well with the gnocchi. I used store bought gnocchi which was a bit too gooey. One of my next cooking adventures is going to be to make my own gnocchi. This is a great recipe and one of my favorites. I like it because it is easy and it really only takes about 20 to 30 minutes to make, which is great on a weeknight!

This is a great recipe and one you should definitely try!

Crab and Ricotta Manicotti

Monday I wanted to make a dish that was a bit time consuming as my husband was home for MLK day and was able to watch our 9 month old. I was also looking for a recipe that would give us some leftovers that we could eat for lunch in the days to follow. I chose a Crab and Ricotta Manicotti recipe from Giada de Laurentis' book Everyday Pasta and can also be found on the Food Network website.

The recipe was fairly simple though a little time consuming because you have to make the Bechamel Sauce before anything else. However, as the book states , the sauce can be made a day or 2 in advance.

We enjoyed the creamy characteristics of this dish. I also liked that this manicotti is not heavy as your more tradional manicotti recipe. There was a nice crab to ricotta ratio in the filling. You get a nice amount of crab in every bite.

The only negative comments I would make about this recipe is, though I enjoyed the filling, I also felt that it fell a little flat. Granted this could be because I live in Columbus, Ohio and not in Maryland where I could get really fresh crabmeat. Or it could be that I am just not a big of Bechamel Sauce, I find it to be a little bland, unless there is something I am not doing correctly when I make it. Either way, I think the next time I make this recipe, and yes I will try it again, I am going to try adding a little spicy seafood seasoning to the filling. Also, the manicotti did not reheat as well as we would have liked, though I think this is more our error than the fault of the recipe. I should have known that crab may not be the best thing for leftovers.

All in all, we enjoyed this recipe. It really is pretty simple. I think if you really like crab, then you are going to love this!