Roasted Garlic Is Life Changing

 

I don’t talk about one of my passions very much. It’s cooking and baking. I love to eat, obviously. You can merely look at me and know I don’t miss many meals. 😉 You wonder why I even have to say that I love to eat. That should go without saying. Except not everybody does. Some do it simply to fuel their bodies out of necessity. Whether they are watching calories or are too busy to slow down and enjoy a meal, they are missing out. Easy for me to say. The people who don’t revel in the intoxicating and stress relieving properties of food consumption are probably not overweight either. They really don’t get the otherworldly pleasure that I do from lifting a fork or spoon to my lips, opening my mouth for the first bite and partaking of the texture and flavor of nature’s goodness. Not to mention the joy and anticipation I get just from looking at and thinking about food.

I feel exceptionally blessed that I was given the gift of a palate that can appreciate most foods. Up until a few years ago, I didn’t even realize that food is a taste like tv shows or music. That people have preferences–likes and dislikes. I would never (probably not) try to get someone to watch a tv show if they said they hated it. Just because I loved it, I would assume they had different tastes and move on. Where as with food, I find ALL of it DELICIOUS and figure people don’t know any better when they don’t like a certain food or dish. I jumped to the conclusion that they’d just never had it prepared right or that they were close minded without even trying it. When I’m eating various things, I always think, “HOW COULD ANYONE NOT LIKE THIS?!”

When I was thinking of starting my blog 4 years ago, hubby suggested I do a food blog. I was all for it. Until I really began to weigh what that would mean. I didn’t like the idea of only blogging about food, cooking and baking. Although it is a big part of my life, I didn’t want to ONLY do that on the Internet. I could’ve done a blog about dogs, more specifically OUR dogs. But that would also have been very limiting. Maybe I would’ve had a bigger audience if I had narrowed down what I write about. I saw so many doing the food blog flawlessly and knew I couldn’t compete with the likes of The Pioneer Woman. I wouldn’t even try. In the last 6 months, I found another food blog I love which has the yummiest desserts and appetizers that I simply have to share with you. It’s called Averie Cooks. She does a food blog the way it’s meant to be done. I’ve tried several of her bar recipes and they are all to die for. She hooks me with the first picture and then goes through every step along the way with pictures. Then maybe they’ll be 27 MORE pictures of the finished product. Cut  into individual pieces, put on a plate, stacked on a serving platter, etc. It’s total overkill. She’s selling past the close. That is why I can’t have a food blog. I would be like “I made this. Here try it. Here’s what they look like. You MUST make this!” 😀

Today I roasted garlic for the first time and it changed my life. I was dumbfounded that I’d waited so long to try it. I’d read about how to do it on the Internet several times over the last few years. It just seemed so intimidating. It was ridiculously easy. I love garlic in its natural form so I was like, “How much better could it be roasted? Is it even worth doing?” WHY YES, IT IS! I cut the tops off heads of garlic (the big bundle thing that has the cloves attached). I was worried I would end up cutting the wrong end but it’s obvious when you go to do it which end to do. Then I drizzled each head with a tiny bit of extra virgin olive oil and wrapped individually in aluminum foil (shiny side out). I put them on a sheet pan and baked in a preheated 400 degree oven for 30 minutes. I let them cool and then unwrapped the heavenly goodness. You can either peel the paper/skin off with your fingers or squeeze it out of each clove. I popped out the cloves and they were soft and buttery with a sweet, very mild and EVEN MORE SCRUMPTIOUS FLAVOR than regular garlic. I spread a clove on each 1/4 of our sandwich for lunch. It gives a hint of flavor, not overpowering at all. Then an entire head I mashed with a fork and put in the dressing for a pasta salad I made for dinner. I had roasted some eggplant as well for it. I love pasta salads and put everything under the sun in them and they’re always good. The one I made today had white onion, celery, roasted eggplant, roasted corn on the cob (leftover from the other night), a diced tomato and a bit of diced cheddar cheese. Now I want to make a hot pasta sauce (another night) with some of the other roasted garlic. It’s so tasty, you can just dig it out and eat it plain. I mean I can but so can you if you haven’t already decided that you don’t like garlic! 😉 Please let me know if you’ve tried this or if you’re going to try this. I would love to say I turned someone on to the joys of roasted garlic.

I wrote the above post almost 2 weeks ago. I was going to add more to it but never had time. Today when walking the dogs, I stopped and chatted with a woman who was gardening. She said she didn’t plant vegetables but did herbs. So we were discussing the different herbs and I asked her if she’d ever made homemade pesto sauce. She said she hadn’t. (I’m making it tonight for dinner! Another first for me.) Then I asked her if she’d ever roasted garlic. She said no. I told her I’d done it recently for the first time and how wonderful it was. In all my exuberance, I said “they undertold how good it was”. <blink, blink> Who talks like that?! Apparently, me. I can hardly believe I said it. She didn’t let on how stupid it sounded but as I continued on my walk, I couldn’t get it off my mind. That was hours ago and I STILL haven’t been able to conjure up the correct term. Normally, I don’t really freak out if I say something wrong but I feel like I should know better. What limited intelligence I had seems to be slipping away. Now I have to wonder if I’m on the path to losing my memory too…I hope I can find my way back to this blog to post in the future. <sigh>