January 29, 2009

neat & easy roasted garlic

Lately I've been feeling a bit under the weather. I had a nasty cold last week and I ended up using my new day off to sleep and recover. I've been resting and trying to do everything I can to keep my immune systems up. At home Mom's advice was always hydration, orange juice and turkey soup with lots and lots of garlic.

Vitamin C is great for you immune system and I've been eating a grapefruit ever morning and orange cake in the evening. Garlic is also supposed to be good for your immune system, but how do you incorporate more garlic into your diet without eating it raw, and driving your loved ones and coworkers away? (Well, in some cases I wouldn't mind driving a certain coworker away)

Roasted garlic is a great condiment or appetizer. On salads, with salmon or roast beef or especially with chevre or SCD yogurt cheese and toast. The roasted garlic that my aunt taught me required a lidded, oven-safe dish and hours of cooking. Mom made this version at my cousin's house but when I got home, and got sick, I needed something quicker and easier. This is it.

Roasted Garlic
2 heads garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp Italian herbs

Preheat oven to 350 F. break apart garlic heads into individual cloves, remove as much of the excess papery skin as possibly, leaving each clove in its own peel (if the individual peel does come off, it's no big deal). Trim the hard ends of each clove. Make a pouch out of two or three squares of aluminium foil. Place garlic, olive oil and herbs in pouch and twist closed. Place directly on oven rack and bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool. When foil is cool enough to touch, open foil pouch and extract roasted garlic from peels.

Serve with SCD yogurt cheese and toast/crackers or on a salad or with your favorite meat dish.

3 comments:

Paragon~Of~Virtue said...

Oh thank you!!! I am making antipasto for Baby E's birthday party tomorrow. I found GF prosciutto and everything but forgot about roasted garlic. I am definitely doing some tonight for tomorrow.

p.s. I'm jealous you have family that have these recipes. My Mum's not really a very good cook!

Anonymous said...

OOoh! I just love garlic-some Italian roots. Thank you for coming over to my new site, I just figured out yours, there was a small typo. Looks delicious over here, I will definately be back.

Anonymous said...

ah garlic, how I love thee! I haven't had garlic in, well, almost 2 years. Sophie is allergic to it. I used to eat it like crazy. My husband and I would sometimes mix garlic with some olive oil, slather it on a rice tortilla and bake it. :) Two garlic lovers is better than one!