Green garlic

I made garlic bread last week, and the garlic turned out green! I made it with olive oil, not butter, because of my allergies, but apparently it does it sometimes also with butter. Ah well, I guess we know it really does happened, as stated in this post: Green Garlic.

Vegan creamy leek and potato soup

How to make a creamy soup when no milk or cream is to be added? I found a few recipes but they all said to mix everything with the blender, but then the leeks would not be visible. I wanted the soup to be creamy but the leeks to be recognizable within the soup. To make this recipes you need to prepare the leeks and the potatoes in separate pots, this will allow to puree the potatoes and leave the chopped leeks to add chunky texture to the soup.




I used:
4 cups potatoes, peeled and chopped
2 large leeks, chopped (there are 3 in the picture but I only used 2)
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cups vegetable broth or water (or more depending on how thick it is and/or how liquid you like it
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon chopped ginger
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
In a large pot brown the garlic in the olive oil, add the potatoes and sautee until lightly browned. Add the broth to the potatoes and boil until softened.


In a separate pot, sautee the leeks in the olive oil for 2 minutes.


When the potatoes are cooked in the broth, puree with the hand blender, the texture will be that of a vichyssoise. Add the leeks and simmer for 2 minutes for flavour.



Add the chopped ginger and the curry powder to the soup. This will make the soup look a bit yellow, not the usual white, but will give it a distinctive flavour of deliciousness. Season with salt and pepper to taste.


Serve and enjoy!

Grilled lettuce

Yesterday I tried this delicious recipe and a totally new thing for me, I knew that the dish existed because I saw it once on the Food Network, but I had never thought of trying it. I was trying to come up with original veggie ideas for grilling and that's when I remembered the lettuce. I did not follow the recipe on the Food Network, but I followed the technique and main idea.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon minced ginger
4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon honey
3 heads of romaine lettuce

Instructions:
To make dressing, combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

Slice each head of lettuce in two, lengthwise.


Brush the lettuce with the dressing.



Grill the lettuce on both sides for 5 minutes total. Brush with the dressing when turning around. You don't want to grill it for too long or it will wilt. You want it to be warm and grilled, but not soggy and wilted.


Here is the grilled lettuce. The picture is not very good, but I can assure you it was crunchy and soft at the same time, and it had nicely absorbed the delicious Asian-inspired dressing. Each person ate a whole half of lettuce and other veggies as well.

Garlic By Thibert

Garlic By Thibert
Originally uploaded by ravenswift

This garlic was seen at the Saturday Farmers' Market in Windsor, Ontario.

Smoked garlic on pizza

David Zimand sent us another recipe with a delicious-looking picture.

Smoked garlic on pizza

Smoked and slow grilled garlic atop smoked and grilled tomato, sun dried tomato, and home smoked mozzarella on top of pizza.
a little olive oil drizzle, thick ground black pepper and black sea salt.
Garlic top chopped off, slow grilled with hickory and cedar chips to accentuate taste and slow cook. Result: a sweet and yet smokey pungent garlic taste.

He also had this comment about it:

I find every preparation garlic develops a different taste - this one being complex and yet retaining the best qualities of garlic.

I didn't know how to smoke garlic, so I asked him, here is his reply:

Every way of cooking and preparing garlic will yield different results, different flavors, whether pungent, sweet, etc. Grilling, baking, smoking, etc. will bring out more of a sweet taste and less of a strong pungent garlic taste like with fresh garlic.

To smoke - chop up finely and put into a rolling paper. Light. Just kidding.

Chop top off of entire clove - so that the individual cloves are exposed. Put onto wood plank so that garlic is not exposed directly to flames or grate of the grill - unless you want to dramatically reduce cooking time and lessen smokey flavor.
For even greater smokey flavor put wood chips, pine cones, etc. under grate, wood plank on top of grate and then place garlic on top of wood plank.
I prepare the smoked tomatoes and artichoke the same way.
Since garlic will have shrunk from cooking, just peel off outer layers to expose garlic, then place on pizza and cook - as in photo - or spread on bread or mash and combine with olive oil.

Haha, funny and delicious.
Enjoy everyone!

Caramelized Garlic

David Zimand from Creagency sent us this delicious recipe for caramelized garlic. He says he's a garlic fanatic so welcome to the club!

Caramelized Garlic

Peel, crush lightly til falls apart. Saute with demerara sugar, a tiny bit of salt and voila, caramelized garlic.

Can be eaten alone or put on other dishes as I often do (says David).

He also has a whole page on Flickr dedicated to food, the pictures are amazing: Food Book.

Pasta with vegan pesto and mushrooms

This recipe is super garlicky and not for the faint of heart. To make it a bit friendlier decrease the amount of garlic in the pesto.

Ingredients:
2 cups tightly pressed fresh basil
2 heads of garlic
1 pint cherry tomatoes
Olive oil
3 cups assorted mushrooms (I used shitake and cremini, but you can use portobello, white, oyster, etc.)
Fresh long pasta (I used fetuccine from St. Lawrence Market)
Salt and pepper to taste
Dehydrated garlic to taste
1 oz cooking sherry

Instructions:
There are 2 parts to this recipe, the pesto, which is raw, and the pasta with mushrooms.

To make the pesto:
Finely chop the tomatoes or chop them in the food processor. Add some salt and leave them in a strainer to get rid of the excess water.

After about 10 minutes, the tomatoes will be rid of their excess water. Put them back in the food processor along with the basil and the peeled cloves of one head of garlic. You can also add about one teaspoon of dehydrated garlic if you want. Chop finely.

When all the ingredients are finely chopped in the food processor, add about 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. This will give the pesto its saucy consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

To make the pasta and mushrooms:
Chop the mushrooms and the cloves of 1 head of garlic.

Stir fry the chopped garlic in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil, when the garlic is softened, add the mushrooms and keep stir frying. Add salt and pepper to taste. When mushrooms are cooked (about 4 minutes) add one shot of sherry. Cover and let boil for about 1 minute.
Meanwhile, cook the pasta in lots of salted water according to instructions. The fresh pasta from St. Lawrence Market takes about 4 minutes to be al dente.
When pasta is ready, toss it into the warm soupy mushrooms (my pasta looks red because I got tomato pasta).

Let the pasta absorb the mushroom juices for about 1 minute.
Serve in a big spaghetti bowl. Add the pesto on top.

Enjoy, and be careful with all that garlic. No, seriously, I was kind of crying at the end of my dinner. But it was goood!

Roasted Garlic Express

Tina sent me an email asking for help. She wants to know if the Roasted Garlic Express can be found anywhere in the West Coast in Canada. Here is a picture of the garlic roaster.



It seems like a great gadget for any garlic-lover to have. It is made and marketed in the USA.
Tina found a place in Canada that sells it, it is called hedonics.com, but they only ship to Central Canada, so she cannot get it in British Columbia.
Does anyone know any other place in Canada, preferably British Columbia, where this amazing garlic roaster can be found? Any help will be appreciated.

Bonus, there are garlic recipes in the Roasted Garlic Express website, yum!