Garlic Extract

I get kind of crazy about high-quality hardneck garlic at the farmer's market. It has a strong, rich flavor, and a thick, oily texture that I find entirely different from normal garlic. Our local Whole Foods usually only has extra-gross garlic with that odd baloney smell old garlic often gets. To be able to taste quality garlic in the off season, I decided to start making my own garlic extract (which also makes cooking a lot more convenient).

First, while this picture isn't great, you can see the difference in how much garlic oil there is between the good garlic (at left) and the normal garlic (at right):



Anyway, to capture that goodness, just chop up a ton of good garlic, and let it soak in some decent vodka. No need for top-shelf, but please don't use gross super-cheap vodka which has off flavors. Svedka has the best quality: price ratio in my opinion, so it's what I used. Here's the vodka soaking up the garlic flavor:




After it tastes sufficiently garlicky (I gave it 2 days in the fridge), strain through a cheesecloth. Now you can just add a splash of it to your stir fry, and it will taste like fresh garlic! Wayyy better that garlic powder.

I won at bowling

I have been super busy with school, three graduate courses are keeping me on my toes!  But I did have time to go bowling on Saturday.

Vegans can levitate.  Have I mentioned this?

This joyful dance was after my one and only strike.  Nonetheless, I still got the highest score of....100.  So we're not bowling experts!  I think that only serves to confirm our coolness.

Given my busy schedule, I don't have loads of time to labor away in the kitchen.  I've been making things that are quick, and this dish qualifies as super quick, and super yum.

It comes out slightly crispy (hence the brown parts) from being under the broiler - delicious!

1 Trader Joe's Bag of Organic Broccoli (which they have kindly chopped and cleaned for you)
1 TBS chopped garlic - preferably farmers market garlic which is a different variety of garlic than supermarkets generally sell
1 TBS Olive Oil
1/4 tsp fine salt

Chop 1 TBS of awesome farmers market garlic and place in 1 TBS of Oil to marinate for at least 1 hour.  I left mine overnight.  Mix in 1/4 tsp fine salt into the oil/garlic.  In a big bowl with a lid, combine the garlic/salt/oil mix with the broccoli, and shake it all around a lot to ensure even coating.

I broke up the really big chunks of broccoli from the bag so they would cook evenly, and placed the teeny ones in the center all crowded, and the big fatties at the edge spaced out to further even out the size/cooking time discrepancies.

Broil on high for 5 minutes, then flip each piece, then broil 3-5 more minutes (depends on how intense your broiler is, keep a close watch, broilers can burn things up super quick). Enjoy.

Herbed "Cheesy" Drop Biscuits w/ Garlicky Chard

We're now all caught up with the more interesting dishes that we've made over the past few months! The last one is for these biscuits I made yesterday morning. Sarah always likes a hearty breakfast on the weekends, but since we've given up on sugar for Lent pancakes etc. end up pretty gross, so I went savory instead. Sarah got the chard to make these baked cheesy chard toast points which are a lot of work so I just put it with the biscuits instead. The biscuits came out a bit too salty, but since I didn't salt the chard it actually worked out to be pretty tasty when all together. If eating the biscuits plain I would probably cut the salt in half.

Herbed "Cheesy" Drop Biscuits
1 2/3 cups white flour
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp thyme, dried
1/2 tsp oregano, dried
1/2 tsp powdered dried rosemary
1 Tbsp baking poweder
1/2 tsp salt (as noted above, you may wish to use 1/4 tsp if eating these on their own)
3/4 cup nondairy milk (I ended up needing a bit more to make the dough the right texture).
1/3 -> 1/2 cup nondairy margarine (I used almost 1/2 cup)

Preheat the overn to 450F and grease a cookie sheet. Mix the flour, nutritional yeast, spices, salt, and baking powder together in a large bowl. Add the margarine and use a pastry cutter to cut it up into small pieces (about the size of a green pea is ideal, I always end up making them too small but they're still good). Add the soy milk and stir until moistened (don't overmix); adding a bit more soy milk if it's too dry. Form roughly golf-ball sized biscuits (don't press them together much, you want them to have lots of surface area) and drop them onto the cookie sheet. Bake ~10-15 minutes until the bottoms are golden brown and they're cooked all the way through. Top with garlicky chard (below) to make them a bit healthier.


Garlicky Chard
1 bunch chard (any color)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp olive oil

Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high, add the garlic once the oil is hot, cook for a minute, then add the chard and cook until it's nicely wilted. Serve over the biscuits.

"Ricotta" Gnocchi w/ Roasted Garlic Marinara

Sarah made me this for Valentine's Day! She started with a recipe she found online for ricotta gnocchi, but made some tofu ricotta instead of the real thing, and had to use more flour. The sauce was more or less from Emeril's roasted garlic marinara recipe. They were super-garlicky and delicious!

How to peel garlic super fast (20 seconds)

Since we have been remiss in posting lately, we thought we would show you that Vegan Lady not only Eats, she Vlogs (or whatever) too! Observe her prowess in demonstrating that one can indeed peel a head of garlic in twenty seconds. Note that this works better if after a single round of shaking, you remove the peeled cloves before shaking up the unpeeled ones again. We peeled these for some Scorpion Paste to go with Tacos (stand by for another post).