snack board – hmcfarms

Thanksgiving With Grapes

Posted on November 11, 2021November 11, 2021 by Liz Piña

Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, which kicks off the holiday season. Holiday traditions often revolve around food, and if we’re being honest, food is one of the things we look forward to most throughout the holiday season. At HMC Farms, we eat what we grow, and that means that our Thanksgiving table includes plenty of HMC Farms table grapes! In the spirit of our farm table, we’ve gathered some ideas for you to add to your own Thanksgiving table. Let us know if you try any of these by tagging us in your photos on social media, or leaving a comment here on our blog.

Holiday charcuterie

Charcuterie boards are popular for a reason, and we love the versatility of a block of wood piled up with all of our favorite snacks. We used a variety of cheeses, fruit, and other snacks in this charcuterie board-see the list below. Vegetarians or vegans can easily adapt this to their dietary specifications by ditching the salami, and swapping out the cheese for dairy alternatives. Nut allergy? Swap out the nuts for more crackers or some veggies. As long as you keep the grapes, we approve!

Here’s what we used on our holiday charcuterie board:

HMC Farms red seedless table grapes

Aged white cheddar

Habanero & jalapeño cheddar

Two types of salami

Pomegranate

Almonds

Pistachios

Fig crisps

Sprigs of rosemary for greenery

Stuffing with roasted grapes

Tired of the same old boring stuffing with that turkey? Try mixing it up with the addition of roasted grapes! This is a winning choice because you can keep the same exact recipe (or box of mix) you always use, and just stir the roasted grapes in at the end. An additional bonus here is that roasting is a great option for grapes that are getting a little wrinkly or soft. Roasting grapes is as easy as plucking them off the stem, rinsing, tossing them in olive oil and a little bit of sea salt on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and popping them in the oven. The process is very simple, and you can up the ante a little bit here by adding thyme or rosemary when tossing the grapes in olive oil.

Looking for more on roasted grapes? Check out this guide from our friends at The Produce Moms.

Baked feta with roasted grapes

Yes, we are recommending two dishes that contain roasted grapes because they are really that good. If you haven’t tried roasted grapes before, you are truly missing out on a versatile topping or ingredient that can fit into many savory or sweet dishes. If you are a feta fan, you’ve probably tried the trendy baked feta pasta, and we don’t blame you. Quick and easy recipes are perfect to include in Thanksgiving, since you’re already spending plenty of time and effort on everything else. Rather than the main course, this is a great appetizer or side dish, or even the perfect centerpiece for your charcuterie board. Serve it with crackers or rustic bread and thank us later. You can find our recipe for baked feta and roasted grapes on our Instagram page or check out the similar recipe that inspired us on the Grapes from California website.

Halloween Snack Ideas From HMC Farms Grapes

Posted on October 13, 2021October 13, 2021 by Liz Piña

The crispness of fall is finally in the air on our farms, and that means we’re cooking up all of our fall favorites in our farm kitchen! One of our favorite holidays around here just so happens to be Halloween, and we’ve got some ideas for healthier Halloween treats featuring grapes from HMC Farms! These treats are kid and adult approved, so gather the whole family and swap out sugary sweets for nature’s candy!

Looking for the perfect snack for your favorite Halloween movie? Whip up a bowl of these monster eyes! This almost-too-cute-to-eat snack is simply HMC Farms green seedless grapes topped with candy eyes (trust us, the plastic googly eyes don’t taste good, so please don’t eat them). To stick the candy eyes to the grapes, use a small dab of your favorite nut butter or icing. Get the monster eye look by just adding candy eyes to the top layer of grapes, it’s tough to keep them stuck to the grapes on the bottom layer.

Having a full on Halloween movie marathon or party? Try this Halloween snack board! We used the bowl of monster eyes for the center, and surrounded them with HMC Farms red seedless grapes, ghost & bat veggie chips, string cheese ghosts, cheddar jack-o-lanterns, pretzels, almonds, and candy bones. We achieved the string cheese ghost and cheddar jack-o-lantern looks by using a permanent marker on the plastic wrappers. If you want to draw directly on the cheese, be sure to use a food-safe marker! You can easily add some spooky salami to this board, or swap the cheddar rounds for mandarins, but the monster eyes are a must!

If you look at our Halloween snack board and imagine your children fighting over the same string cheese ghost, or if the thought of other people’s hands touching your food haunts your dreams, try a charcuterie assortment! This is a perfect way to offer snacks to a skeleton crew, or a whole mob of zombies in your backyard. It’s also a great way to have the kids help put snacks together – let them wash and dry their favorite color of HMC Farms grapes and fill up their jar while older kids or adults create the salami & cheese skewers and strong cheese ghosts.

The jarcuterie is perfectly portable for a treat yo-self moment in your bathtub with a glass of wine, or for watching your favorite celebrities learn to dance on television.

If you’re using HMC Farms grapes in your Halloween snacks, be sure to tag us on Facebook and Instagram!

Fruit and Cheese Board

Posted on July 12, 2019July 26, 2019 by Liz Piña

Chances are, you’ve seen a perfectly styled cheese or charcuterie board on social media. While cheese, meat, and crackers can make any crowd pretty happy; we feel that no charcuterie is complete without our HMC Farms fruit. The sweet flavors of our tree fruit and table grapes perfectly compliment the savory meat and cheese that are classic cheese board staples.

What you’ll need to copy our board:

4-6 pieces of HMC Farms fruit
- We used 2 plumcots, 2 nectarines, and a large peach
HMC Farms grapes
- We used Bunchkins, which are perfect for this, but our other grapes work well also.
3 kinds of cheese
- We used 3 types of Vintage Cheese from nearby Bravo Farms: Dutch-Style Gouda, Chipotle Cheddar, and Classico (this one is a hard goat cheese) – we suggest using one cheese that crumbles well
2 types of meat – salami, prosciutto, etc.
- We used sliced peppered salami and dry salami nuggets
Crackers, crisps, or a sliced baguette
- We used cranberry pumpkin seed crisps and mini Croccatini crackers
1-2 kinds of nuts
- We used raw almonds and cashews
Honey
- We used chipotle honey from a local stand
Green garnish
- We used oregano from our home garden, but rosemary is a beautiful accent.

The perfect board is a combination of beauty and taste. We started by placing our cheeses in three different spots around the board. We sliced the softer cheeses, and crumbled the hard cheese, while leaving it inside the rind for aesthetic purposes. Next, we sliced our HMC Farms peaches, nectarines, and plumcots, and placed them in three different spots on the board. We’ve found that the board looks best when the anchor items, in this case cheeses and fruit, are on different thirds of the board. Our jar of honey went right in the middle of the board.

Tip: A lot of our HMC peaches and nectarines are clingstone varieties. We’ve found that the easiest way to create pretty slices of fruit is to place the fruit on a cutting board with the stem side down and slice straight down on each side around the pit. These larger pieces can be sliced more easily that trying to separate each slice from the pit individually.

After placing the stone fruit, we added our Bunchkins Champagne grapes. These petite bunches of fun practically scream charcuterie board, and we are still in their narrow window of availability. Once the Bunchkins have completed harvest and are no longer available, try replacing them with our delicious HMC Farms California table grapes.

The open spaces remaining on the board were then filled in with the salami and crackers, followed by the nuts and garnish.

Tip: An easy way to make sliced salami look fancy is to fold it into quarters (in half once, and then in half again so that it is shaped like a slice of pizza) and then wedge it together with the rounded side up.

Honestly, we had to hold back the whole office to take photos of the board. It was promptly devoured as soon as we finished the photos. You can expect a similar reaction when serving a fruit and cheese board at your next BBQ, game night, or book club. People love these delightful mini buffets, and HMC Farms fruit will elevate your board to the next level.

We hope you enjoy our fruit and cheese board guide. Tag us in your fruit and cheese board photos on Facebook (@HMCfarmsKingsburg) and Instagram (@HMCfarms)!

P.S. We learned how to make cheese boards from @ainttooproudtomeg on her Instagram feed. Check it out for ideas on different types of board styles and ways to elevate your cheese board game.