Ep 52: Small Bites, Garlic Girl Summer
Check out Small Bites, with episodes 15 minutes or less here to teach you what to do to make summer ingredients shine and how to make dinner…fast!
Join me in the Empty Nest Kitchen as I share expert tips and techniques for cooking with garlic. From selecting the perfect garlic bulbs to using raw and roasted garlic in various dishes, we'll covers it all. Learn how to store garlic properly, the benefits of different garlic forms, and even get a sneak peek into my mini course 'Just Add Sauce'. Discover how to bring out the best flavors from this magical ingredient and enhance your culinary skills.
Be sure to visit EmptyNestKitchen.com and sign up for my weekly newsletter filled with super practical cooking advice and free resources.
Links from this episode
Find more information on Just Add Sauce: The No-Cook Mediterranean Fix
Follow Christine Van Bloem on Instagram @theemptynestkitchen and on Facebook @emptynestkitchen
Learn more about Menopause Meal Plans
Sign up for my FREE 10 Essential Tools for the Empty Nest Kitchen
Rate, review & subscribe on Apple Podcasts
Want to show this podcast some love? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts!
Click here to view our show on Apple Podcasts then click on Listen on Apple Podcasts. This will open your podcast player.
If you want to get my latest episodes, be sure to click Subscribe.
Scroll to the bottom then select your star rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.
Then click on Write a Review. I’d love to hear what you enjoyed most about this episode or our podcast in general!
-
Welcome to the Empty Nest Kitchen where we're finding fun in the kitchen. Now that the kids have flown the coop, I'm Christine Van Bloon, a cooking teacher with over 25 years of experience here to show you tips, tricks, and joy in your kitchen, all while trying something new. Let's get cooking. Now, we're coming into the close of the small bite season just this weekend next, and I hope you have enjoyed these little bits of things. And I could not finish this out without talking about garlic because let me tell you, the garlic is coming in and. It's one of those magical ingredients that will do so many things for you based on what you do to it, right? It's got a lot of flexibility. I mean. Garlic is gonna bring punch to something, especially if it's raw. But if you roast it, I mean hello. It gets all sweet and kind of nice. We love this. So I wanna talk to you about how you can kind of amp up your garlic knowledge without needing to incorporate a lot of new recipes. We are used to seeing garlic everywhere, but we wanna know how to manage it. When I was in college, I remember I discovered that you could put garlic powder. They had Sal's at Sal's and kutztown, pa. They had. Garlic powder on the table and crush red pepper flakes. And I was like, what is this magical stuff? And oh my gosh, I must have had like a fume of garlic surrounding me my whole freshman year because I would put it on without a care in the world. And I'll tell you, sometimes my husband says, I like garlic. Too much, but I debate that I don't think there is too much of a good thing. So let's talk about real garlic here, not Jar-lic. If you are a fan of garlic, that's totally fine. You do you and don't apologize to anyone for it. But when we're buying real garlic, we always wanna look for. Firm bulbs, right? We don't want'em to have those little green spot sprouts coming out of them, and we don't want'em to have any soft spots or just in general feel soft. When we're getting lots of our fresh fruits and veg, we want it to be heavy for its size, and garlic is no exception to that. We want it to feel heavy. When it feels light, you know the cloves are starting to shrivel, steer clear. You do not want that one. If it's got the paper on it, and most of them still have the paper on it, we wanna look that the garlic bulb is nice and tight. That it's not, the paper isn't starting to come off already, but that it's nice and tight. That is a great garlic head that you're looking at. And really important. I have taught a lot of very young cooks in my life, and a head is the full thing of garlic and a clove is the piece that comes off of that. I will tell you, I have had teenagers come in to me and say, I don't know, it was a little over garlicy and they used two heads. Instead of two cloves. So you have been warned. When we store it, we always wanna make sure that we're storing it just like we store our spices. Cool, dark place. Don't have it sitting in the sun. And don't actually put it in your fridge. It's gonna sprout. In there, so you wanna keep it? I have a little bowl that I use, a little turn bowl. It's really cool. And that's where I keep my onions and garlics. I keep it in a corner on the counter where it doesn't get hit by sunlight. Now, I was talking about jar-lic earlier, and you guys all know the jarred garlic, and I will tell you this, the only reason that I don't like that stuff is because it's got additives to it. Right. It's part of the deal with being in the jar. I also feel like the, the little bits are too firm. I don't know if that's like, I can't make it smaller, but I don't like it because I think it has sort of a chemically taste to it. Don't worry though. You have options because nowadays you can buy refrigerated garlic paste in a tube. Don't confuse it with your toothpaste, or you can buy it in the freezer section in these little. They look like little baby ice cube trays. And typically they're 20 little things, 20 little pods, or not pods, but little divots in it, like an ice cube tray. And each one is supposed to equal one clove of garlic. And I like those because you just pop'em out and. They're frozen, so no additives. They fall lickety split too. Don't think you have to put'em in a pan. You do not. They can easily just go into a bowl and as you make a dressing or something like that, it will melt very quickly. I promise. You can find that in the freezer section. And they will also have. Chopped basil, chopped cilantro, chopped ginger. I love having the ginger around, right? Really great stuff. So if you're a jar-lic fan, give this a try. I think you're gonna like it. I will also say this. I have a wonderful friend Elaine, who has this tremendous garden, and for the second summer in a row, she has brought me garlic that she peeled and she minced and she froze, and they're in these perfect little squares. She has some Walla Walla onions she gave me too that are already diced. She brings it to me. Already frozen and it is the greatest thing ever. So you can freeze these things, it will work really well for you. You do need to do more than just let'em sit in the fridge though. So find yourself a friend like Elaine. If you've got the chance, now we can look at our garlic and we can do two different things with it. If we're gonna do it raw, we wanna think about it because the smaller your garlic is, the more potent it becomes. All right? So if you have slices of garlic versus say when you mash the garlic, that's like you'll mince it a little bit and then you sprinkle a little salt onto it and you use the side of your knife. Against the cutting board to mash it. The smaller that gets the paste becomes the more potent that garlic becomes. Have you ever heard of chicken with 40 cloves of garlic? Because let me tell you, if you hear about that, you're gonna go, holy heck, that's a lot of garlic, but you are using. Whole cloves, right? You're not mincing them, you're not slicing them, chopping them. You're using them whole, and they're going to give off a much more mellow flavor that way. If you did 40 cloves of chopped garlic, I mean, there wouldn't be a vampire around for. Countries, right? So the smaller you chop it, and this is great to know if you're serving it raw, perhaps in a salad dressing. I do love to use a small clove that I've mashed in a salad dressing to really. Pump up the flavor a little bit. That is a good way to go. And I think raw garlic is best, you know, in dressings and sauces and dips and salsas, all of that. You could make a really simple vinegarette by just mashing a clove. Put a bit of lemon juice on it. And of course I use a little bit of salt when I mash that because. It's abrasive and it helps break it down, right? And then whisking in a bit of olive oil right in the bottom of the bowl, and then shove all your salad stuff on top of that. It's really nice. It's good stuff, but if you want to roast your garlic, oh my goodness. It's kinda nutty. It's kind of, it gets this edge of sweetness and it's almost even. Caramelized a little bit. The first time I had had roasted garlic, oh my gosh, I'm so embarrassed. I had made a couple of heads of roasted garlic and was using them to just smear them on bread. They were so delicious. I think I ate more than an entire head of garlic because I know no moderation in my life. And the next day at work, I was walking down the hall and somebody was like. Did somebody get Italian subs? No, it was me. It was like coming out of the pores in my arms. Ah. So you gotta be careful because for some people narrator raises hand garlic is a lot, so you wanna be careful with that. But roasted. Oh, it is just delicious. And when I do that, I simply take the whole head of garlic, I slice off the very top and then I drizzle on some olive oil. I just wrap that sucker up in foil. I roast it, I don't know, 400, 4 25, half an hour, 45 minutes. You just do it until it's really soft and sweet. And this is a great opportunity because we're still in summer and it's still warm to use that air fryer. This would be a good time to do that, but it's so good. And who doesn't love a roasted garlic mashed potato? Am I right? Or a roasted garlic hummus? I think it's gonna taste way better than if you just do a raw garlic in that. So you can go either way. It's different flavor profiles that you get to figure out. So here's what I want you to do. If you can use some raw garlic and then roast some garlic this week and take a taste and try to figure out, you know, what the nuances are there because garlic can do a lot of good things for you. And if you wanna know even more, check out my mini course. Just add sauce. It is. Super easy breezy. It's five Mediterranean mother sauces. Definitely some garlic in there and each one takes five minutes or less to make. I promise you it is gonna make your dinnertime so much more delicious with so much less effort than you would ever think. You can find that link in my show notes. I would love to have you there. As always, I am thrilled to cook with you. Thrilled to talk with you, and I will see you in the kitchen.
