Cooking Tutorial: How to make roasted garlic

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I think the only thing that smells as savory and beautiful than homebaked bread is garlic roasting in the oven. I make roasted garlic all of the time and try to have it on hand for pasta sauces, salad dressings, mix it up with butter or olive oil and slather it on bread...happiness.

Roasted garlic is much more mellow and gentle than raw garlic. It has a sweet flavour to it so those who have sworn off the harshness of garlic, you may want to consider roasting it. It's easy!

Cut the tip off an entire head of garlic (see above). Put on a piece of aluminum foil.



Drizzle with some olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. You can add herbs if you like.



Gather up the aluminum foil and I learned this from a chef out west, leave a hole on the top so the steam can escape. I have exaggerated the hole a little to show you what I mean. Before putting this in the oven I made it a little smaller. Put it in a low oven of only 325F and keep in there for an hour.



Voila, there you have beautiful caramelized garlic and your home will smell heavenly! Or at least I think so, my husband tends to hide away in the basement when I make this stuff. He likes the smell but it is strong.



The cloves pop out easily and from there you can turn them into a paste or use as it, it is up to you.

Fancy restaurants charge a lot for "mashed potatoes with roasted garlic" but you can make it at home for pennies!

It really is that easy.

Is it worth the extra money?

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To go with those Steamed Barbecue Chicken Buns I also made this lovely Asian Noodle Salad. The recipe is based on a Jamie Oliver recipe and he obviously loves using a ton of sesame oil, there is no way I could use 2-3 tbsp of sesame oil! More like 1 tsp! That oil is super strong. Toned down, this is a wonderful and healthy side dish, the kind I have been looking for for a long time. I love noodles!

For the first time I tried Kamut noodles. They are wheat free and pretty high in protein content in comparison to regular noodles. I wanted a way to eat noodles and not feel super guilty for the carbs and if these are healthy, bring them on! They are expensive though, $4 a box but this was a treat for me.

Unfortunately I am finding out that if you want good flavour, sometimes you have to spend more money. For a while now I have been trying different soy sauces and each inexpensive bottle has been a disappointment. In the book The Best Light Recipe they did taste tests for the best soy sauce and found that San-J's Reduced Sodium Tamari Soy Sauce was the best. I really love this book, they are so thorough in their analysis and testing that I trusted them and bought that exact soy sauce. It wasn't with the "regular" soy sauces, I found it in the health food section which I am shopping in more and more.

What a difference! There is depth of flavour without a sharp aftertaste, in fact the dressing was subtle but I liked it, it worked and I am pretty sure that it was the good quality soy sauce that made the difference because I have made many similar dressings only to be disappointed.

There is nothing worse than buying new ingredients that cost a little extra only to be disappointed. Thankfully this is one time I spent money and it felt like an investment in both my health and my pantry.

In the end, I wish I had spent the $5 on this one soy sauce than waste the same amount of money on three cheaper versions that disappointed me each time. Now that is true waste.

Where do you spend that little extra money on your grocery bill? I would love to hear about the products you do not mind paying a little more for.

I forgot to mention to as I got to the cash register I was stuck deciding between a $3 red pepper or a small bag of snow peas that cost $4! The red pepper won out because I needed vitamin C to go with my spinach but I just could not bring myself spend $7 on just two ingredients for one salad. I'm sure the cashier found my internal financial vs nutritional debate very interesting to watch.

Learning new cooking techniques

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So light and airy, this buns ended up being worth the effort

(Note: information in this post has been updated thanks to my fabulous sister Shannon The Movie Moxie! Thanks for filling in the gaps Shannon!)

I love bread. I am CRAZY about bread. It is my diet nemesis and I do not care. I have given up a lot of foods in my life but refuse to budge on the bread issue. Atkins be damned!

When I lived in Toronto I used to go to an Asian bakery called Yung Sing in a very cool neighbourhood on Baldwin Street close to Chinatown. Our family used to go there and pick up their baked buns all of the time. I tried everything and my favourite was the barbecued pork.

Today, I do not eat pork and came across this recipe for Steamed Pork Buns and got all sad because I no long eat pork (and it has nothing to do with the flu, I just really loved the movie Babe, enough said). Then I'm like, Suzie? What are you thinking? Of course you can do this recipe, just change the filling silly.


Can you tell I am a flavour nut? Look at all those spices!

I sautéed up some spiced chicken, rolled it around in some barbecue sauce and added some minced garlic and lime juice. The filling turned out easy, it was the dough that was ridiculous!

There is something wrong with that dough recipe. Way too much flour I think. I could not get it together by hand so I discarded all the leftover flour, threw the dough in my mixer and let it beat the hell out of it. As a result, I could not get the mixer bowl off when done so I had to take my rolling pin and smack the handle to make it turn counter clockwise to release the bowl! Next time, I will use a different dough recipe!


I was so happy to use my steamer again, it's been a while, and I got to learn a new cooking technique with it!

One thing I love about this cooking technique is you can make buns without turning the oven on! Perfect for summer cooking ideas. And because the filling is already cooked, you just have to cook the dough on the stove and it only takes 15 minutes. You must let them rest for 10 minutes though which was very hard to do, they looked so yummy.

This recipe makes 10 buns. I divided the dough in half and will use the other half to make a pizza tonight. You cut the remaining dough into five pieces and roll them out, put the filling in the middle and gather up the seams and twist them. Place the buns seam side down and steam.

My only complaint (other than the ridiculous dough recipe) is that the buns need some kind of glaze on them and maybe a few sesame seeds? Perhaps I am just being picky, but isn't that a foodie's job?

I hope this inspires you to try something new in the kitchen. I love foodie adventures, don't you?

Greek Salad

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In my mind, this photograph represents my version of a Greek Salad.

Suzie's Greek Salad

6 tbsp olive oil
juice of one lime
1 garlic clove grated
2-3 tsp red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp dill weed
a pinch of white sugar
salt and pepper

Just whisk this up and put it on some greens with olives, feta, green peppers, red onion and tomatoes.

I was surprised when I moved out west that the Greek salads there had almost no lettuce, they were all peppers, not my favourite vegetable. When I was out west I just gave up on this favourite salad of mine. It just wasn't the same.

When I went to Greek Fest in Halifax last year I was happy to see them serving the salad I remembered enjoying when I was in Ontario, that I was not losing my memory. It has been a while since I ate Greek food outside of BC. Although I was disappointed that the donair sauce here is sickeningly sweet, I like it garlicky thank you very much!

Isn't it interesting how food changes depending on where you live? That a "universal" salad is actually regional? That a dipping sauce on one side of the coast is so completely different than the other?

This is what I love about making my own food, I get to make it my way, the way I like. I am in control over my digestive destiny. I know that when I eat this salad I am getting high quality olive oil into my diet and there is more zip because I put in two acids: lime and red wine vinegar. Oh and I am also going to make my own donair sauce from now on!

Green tea: keeping the mind & body healthy

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Shifting gears from cookies to good health...I have recently been doing a lot of research on Alzheimer's prevention and reading the book The Alzheimer's Answer. This illness scares the hell out of me and as much as I wanted to put that book down and not think about it, I kept reading on. I found out that there are many ways to prevent this illness:

1. Keep in good cardiovascular shape
2. Keep the mind working and learning
   
3. Maintain good cholesterol, decrease the bad
4. Eat a low calorie diet to avoid getting diabetes

What interested me the most is how foods can help keep the mind strong. Green tea is particularly good at this. It helps because of its powerhouse of antioxidants. As a result of reading this I brewed up my own decaf-green tea in the fridge. I know, having it be decaffeinated means that it will not be as strong as regular green tea but by brewing it up in the fridge for a long but gentle period of time it actually has more antioxidants than if you brewed it with hot water, according to Prevention.com. Even if I just get some of the antioxidants, it is better than drinking pop!

Suzie the Foodie's Fridge-Brewed Green Iced Tea

Get a large glass or ceramic drink container and put in 6 cups of cold water and 5 green tea bags. Brew in the fridge for 24 hours:



Sweeten with simple syrup. I wanted to make a healthier version of the traditional simple syrup (1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar boiled on the stove for 5 minutes). I warmed 1/3 cup of water, 1/3 cup of simple syrup and 1/3 cup of agave nectar on the stove and used this to sweeten my green iced tea.



I also added some sparkling water to give it some fizz and it is a lovely summer drink! Refreshing, not too sweet and super healthy for you.

If you do not have time to slow-brew the tea you could always just boil the water and let it steep for 10 minutes instead and then sweeten and wait for it to cool down. Either way, this is a shi shi drink that the stores are charging a lot of money for that cost me probably $1 for that entire jug. Save money, brew the tea yourself and keep your body strong and healthy! I love it when food and health come together like that, especially when it saves me money too.

Homemade Cookie Challenge: Chocolate Chip Cookies

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For our cookie challenge I chose these chocolate chip cookies to make from Martha Stewart's site. I made them on the only hot day we have had so far this year but I had an appointment that was cancelled and I wanted to take advantage of the free time I suddenly had. All through last week I showed you about making cookies and all of those photographs were of me making this particular batch of cookies.

I should have realized from the extraordinary amount of sugar that went in to these particular cookies that they would spread out and become quite flat. Next time I will take note of how much sugar is in the recipe, if it is more than a cup I probably will not make them. These are very delicious cookies but I do not like the flat kind, they get crunchy and I prefer my cookies be soft and light.

Despite the flatness issue, they were very good. I may even try them again and see if putting the batter in the fridge prevents them from spreading as much but as I said, with all of that sugar...I highly doubt it.

I think I am just very picky about my cookies. In all of the recipes I have auditioned, there have only been three that make it back on my baking stage. I keep looking though, hoping to be surprised. And so the baking adventure continues!

How did your cookies turn out?!

Am I a Real Jerk?

When I was 18 my family and I went to the Real Jerk Restaurant for dinner in The Beaches area of Toronto. I was told that the food was very spicy which got me worried. I am not able to handle spicy food so I did what I usually do, I ordered seafood hoping it would come in a mild cream sauce. It didn't. The pain was excruciating. I could not eat another bite of my dinner and I swore off spicy foods forever. Who needs that?

I have always been sensitive to spice. When I would order something mild, it was always way too spicy. I have to specify, "no chilies" when I order pad thai because even one chili and I am in big trouble. For me, spice/heat in a restaurant makes a meal completely inedible.

A couple of years ago I took a cooking class at my community centre. We were making Mexican Chocolate Chicken and the chef wanted to add a jalapeno to the dish and I got upset. I told him if he did that, I would not be able to eat the meal. He listened to me and then calmly said, "For food to be complete, you have to have some heat. I'll only put it a little, I promise, it'll just be there in the background. Trust me, it won't hurt."

Oh crap, I thought. He does not realize just HOW sensitive I am but OK, what the hell, put it in and I will prove him wrong.

Well, I guess I am not as sensitive as I thought I was. It was not painful and I experienced what he described, that the light sensation I was feeling on my tongue did add depth to the dish. Depth that I was missing in my home cooked meals. I realized that if I make my own food with way less spice than most people use, but still make sure that it is present in the background, I can participate and eat foods I never dreamed possible.

At another cooking class (if you can call it that, just a guy cooking for us in a grocery store mumbling to himself) the chef took out a thai chili and I rolled my eyes. Oh no, he is going to put that whole thing in there isn't he? I raised my hand and told him that I can handle some heat but not a lot. So he did something that I must admit was genius. He cut the chili in half, removed the seeds and ribs and let it steep in the dish. That way the heat was infused like tea instead of me chomping into a piece of the pepper and wishing I would die.

More and more I have come across research that says a little heat in the diet keeps us healthy and may actually help us heal. In fact, I keep reading that spicy foods may actually help relieve muscle pain! How exciting, this idea gives me hope and inspiration to bring some heat into my kitchen. I think of the long, cold winter I just survived, cold that burrowed into my muscles and bones. Suddenly the idea of replacing that cold with a little heat...really appeals to me.

When you make your own food, you control the flavours and in this case, the "spice" in particular. I really believe we can help our health by making our own food and it is not just about fruits and veggies (although they are super important).

Perhaps what it is we have been avoiding may hold a key to what can help us heal?

Food secrets, tricks and money saving ideas

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FREEZING

One element of freezing cookie dough that really appeals to me is that no matter how tight your budget is for that week, if you wanted homemade cookies you could bake them fresh from your oven.

You can also freeze egg whites and egg yolks. Why would you do this you ask? Well, I don't know how many recipes I have made for desserts that call for four eggs whites and I do not always want to toss out the yolks. I also do not want to force myself to work four extra yolks into my diet that week. So I freeze them for when I want to make a pudding or a custard!



CLEANING

For those of you who cook, bake and clean as much as I do, your rings are probably a disaster! My gems cloud up and stop sparkling on me so fast that I needed a cheap, easy and natural way to clean them on a regular basis and as usual, baking soda is the miracle cleaning ingredient I was looking for. My mother-in-law told me about this trick, put your jewellery in a container with baking soda and then cover with hot water. Let it sit for a couple of minutes and then use a toothbrush and scrub and wowee! It really does the trick.

GINGER

One of Mother Nature's power foods, I always try and keep ginger on-hand in my house. I do not know how many times I have bought ginger only to have it shrivel up and die on me. Turns out ginger is actually easier to grate and work with if it is frozen and by freezing it, it lasts much longer too. Just make sure to peel it before you put in the freezer. The easiest way to peel ginger with the least amount of waste is to scrape it with a spoon. I swear it works! To make an easy ginger tea for that upset stomach cut a piece the size of a thick quarter and let it steep in hot water for 10 minutes. Then add lemon and honey. That's it, ginger tea. It amazes me that people spend $5 on ginger tea bags when one giant piece of ginger only costs 50 cents and lasts forever in the freezer.

SOUP

If you are like me, it drives you crazy to just compost the ends of asparagus that are too woody to eat. Or you save shiitake mushroom stems in the freezer because they are a super food. OK, you are probably not as food-saving-crazy as I am but still, if you hate waste, save these little extras and then make a stock out of them when your freezer gets too full. I always have the bones from a rotisserie chicken in my freezer just waited to be turned into stock:



I actually did the chef-y practice of freezing the stock in an ice cube tray so now I have small bits of broth ready to go to make a sauce or deglaze a pan at any time. Those boxes of broth are $2 and only last a few days in the fridge. Now I have a giant bag that will last for months in the freezer and it was FREE!

Times are hard for everyone these days and any cheap and easy way to avoid waste and save money sounds good to me. I would love to hear your ideas and suggestions! How do you save money in your kitchen?

The Chemistry of Cookies: Why the heck did that happen?

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To understand the fundamentals of cookie baking, let's talk about the basics. Most cookies begin with creaming butter and sugar together. How many times have we done this and had NO idea why it was really necessary? Yes, everything has to come together but is there more going on here than putting a batter together? In fact, there is.

The sharp crystals of the sugar dig and cut into the butter creating air pockets which will help make your cookies light and fluffy. If you are doing this by hand, it is going to take at least five minutes to achieve. It is the workout portion of cookie-making. I like to start the creaming process from one spot and make my way around the bowl by turning it in a counter-clockwise direction. It helps to use very room temperature butter but you don't want it to be too soft because then it will just melt into the sugar and you will not create the air pockets that poof up your cookies to be light and fluffy.

The rest of the process depends a lot on what kind of texture this cookie is going to have. For a chewy cookie, there will need to be high moisture content. For crisp texture, the dough will be low in moisture. For soft cake-like texture there will be a lot of liquid and less sugar and fat.



TROUBLESHOOTING

My cookies spread out and are as flat as pancakes!

Sadly this recently happened to our dear friend Tori as she participated in our cookie challenge! According to The Professional Pastry Chef, the best book on baking I have ever come across and HIGHLY recommend, the spreading out of cookies can be the result of high sugar content when combined with overmixing. "The higher the sugar content, the more the cookies will spread." They suggest replacing the sugar you used with icing sugar instead to reduce this tendency. Sometimes this can also happen because the butter is too warm and will lose its structure so put it in the fridge for a while to cool down.

My cookies are as hard as rocks!

According to The Prepared Pantry's Cookie Troubleshooting Guide, the oven may have been set too low so bake at a higher temperature for a shorter period of time. They also suggest you use brown sugar if the recipe called for regular white sugar. Make sure you are not adding too much flour, this is where disciplined measuring comes into play. Too much flour can result in a tough cookie. When you add the dry ingredients to the wet you do not want to overmix the dough. You want to mix it until just incorporated. Overmixing can get the glutens working too hard and you will turn out a tough cookie!

My cookies always burn on the bottom!

The Professional Pastry Chef writes that because of the high sugar content of cookies, they are susceptible to overbrowning and suggest double-panning the batch to prevent them from browning too much on the bottom before they fully bake on the top. They also recommend baking at 375F (unless they are macaroons which require more heat) so if your recipe calls for a higher temperature than 375F, you are baking them at too high a temperature.

I hope that helps answer some of your questions about baking cookies. If you have had an issue that I did not address, please let me know and I will see what I can find.

I hope we all have fun baking cookies together no matter what the results! I love baking because it is where chemistry is mixed with magic and a lot of love. You never know what is going to happen.