Roasted Garlic Aioli. You may be asking yourself at this moment, just what is aioli. From where I am sitting I would say it is a garlic mayonnaise, and I hear Frenchmen everywhere cringing as I utter those words!
Wars have been started over less I am sure.
In the south of France which is where this delicious condiment got started, it is essentially garlic pounded together with olive oil by using a mortar and pestle. There are no eggs or any other ingredient added.
Like most things however, it has morphed into a type of a garlic mayonnaise, with the addition of eggs, and mustard. A really tasty garlic mayonnaise.
A garlic mayonnaise that is really delicious served as a condiment or dip with all sorts of things. In fact you can buy ready-made aioli in most of the shops where it will be found next to the mayonnaise!
I am not overly fond of raw garlic. (Did I hear all of you garlic lovers just take a sharp breath?) I find the flavour a bit harsh, especially in large amounts such as the amounts needed to make aioli.
Roasting garlic however, really mellows out and sweetens it. I love roasted garlic. I would never eat a whole clove of garlic raw, but I have been known to eat one roasted!
Its lovely and sweet. Beautiful spread onto bread and in sauces. And I have to say it is gorgeous in aioli! Seriously delicious!
The recipe I am sharing with you today is an adaptation from one I found in the Donna Hay cookbook entitled, The New Classics. I really love Donna Hay recipes. They are fresh and innovative and usually less than fiddly.
She is pretty much the Martha Stewart of "Down Under" and the Queen of presentation when it comes to food in my opinion. I absolutely love what she does.
Her original recipe made two cups of aioli, and I knew I would never in a million years be able to reasonably use two whole cups of the stuff, no matter how delicious it was.
I cut the recipe in half to make only one cup, which suits me just fine. That I might be able to handle and use up within a week, but I am not sure about that. I will try anyways!
Normally when I roast garlic, I cut the top off, drizzle the inside with some olive oil, sprinkle it with salt and pepper and then wrap it up in little foil pouches, ready to throw into a hot oven to roast.
She roasts her completely differently and I have to say I really love how she does it. The garlic gets halved horizontally, drizzled with oil and then roasted cut side down on a baking paper lined baking sheet.
It roasts in half the length of time and you get more scrummy toasty bits. Oh, I do so love scrummy toasty bits, especially in garlic. Almost like candy.
The roasted garlic then gets squeezed out of the skins into a bowl and mashed with a fork, ready to fork into the mayonnaise-like sauce that you create.
You will need a food processor, blender or immersion blender to make the mayo mixture. I use my immersion blender. Its really easy to use. I would not be without one. In fact I don't even bother to keep a regular blender anymore.
You just pop the egg, lemon juice and some Dijon into the bowl of the blender/food processor, or cup for the immersion blender and blitz everything together to combine. Then you start drizzling in the oil while continuing to blend.
In next to no time at all you have a beautiful emulsification, a thick, creamy glossy sauce. Mayonnaise for all intents and purposes, except made using lemon juice instead of vinegar.
If you are going to feed this to small children or the elderly, do make sure to use a pasteurized egg as the egg in this isn't cooked, and they don't recommend serving raw egg to either of those groups of people.
There is a complete tutorial and instructions on how to do exactly that here on The Instructables, or you can purchase them already pasteurized.
Once you have your mayonnaise/aioli made it is simple a matter of forking the roasted and mashed garlic through. Easy peasy. You won't even break into a sweat!
You will find this to be incredibly delicious and quite versatile as well. You can use it as a dip, or to garnish salads and cooked meats.
Today I used it as a dip/salad condiment to serve with a lovely garden/dinner salad I had made for myself.
Fresh salad leaves, a lovely mixture that I picked up at the farm shop behind my house, along with some spicy micro-greens that I got in town. To that I added some poached chicken and a hard boiled egg, along with some steamed vegetables.
Asparagus for dipping, carrots, zucchini, fresh garden peas. A beautiful combination and all going so very well with that delicious aioli.
I garnished the top with some alfalfa sprouts and added a radish garnish as well. Those radish garnishes are very easy to make, and are so pretty when done.
Just use the tip of a sharp knife and make small cuts in towards the center of the radish, all around the circumference of the radish, creating a sort of a zigzag pattern. You only want to go as far as the center.
Once you have done that all the way around, it is very easy to twist the two halves apart and voila! You have a beautiful garnish for all of your cold and salad plates!
This was really delicious. I even steamed a cauliflower floret to enjoy along with it all. My favorite bits? Why those beautiful new potatoes. So tasty dipped into that gorgeous aioli!
I am still thinking about them . . . sigh . . . I am such a glutton.
It was all seriously delicious. I thought this to be a fairly healthy and yet substantial dinner. Well, maybe the aioli wasn't the healthiest bit, but the rest was absolutely healthy!
I felt absolutely justified in having a dish or Orange Pineapple ice cream for dessert! Oh boy it was some good!
And now you know why I look the way I do!
Its a good thing I don't have to meet anyone in person for the next day or so. I quite stink of garlic I am sure . . . and orange pineapple. What a glorious combination!
Roasted Garlic Aioli
Yield: Makes 1 cup
Prep time: 5 MinCook time: 30 MinTotal time: 35 Min
This is a great condiment to have in the refrigerator in the summer month. Its delicious, easy to make and goes so well with cooked meats and vegetables. It also makes a fabulous dip.
Ingredients
- 2 heads of garlic, unpeeled and halved through the middle
- 1 TBS olive oil
- 1 large free range egg
- 1
- 1 TBS fresh lemon juice
- 1/2 TBS Dijon mustard
- 3/4 cup (180ml) light olive oil
- fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350*C|F/180*C/gas mark 4. Line a small baking tray with some baking parchment.
- Place the garlic, cut side up, on the baking tray. Drizzle with the oil and then flip over, cut side down.
- Roast in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before squeezing the individual cloves from the skins into a bowl. Mash completely with a fork.
- Place the egg, lemon juice, and mustard into a food processor or blender and blitz to combine. With the motor running, slowly drizzle in the oil in a thin and steady stream. You should end up with a thick and creamy mayonnaise type of mixture.
- Fork through the mashed garlic, and season to taste with salt and black pepper.
- Store covered in the refrigerator. Use within one week.
But its not enamel. Its ceramic and I think quite cute! I had to buy it. I know I will be using it a lot! I quite love LOVE it.
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Skillet Turkey Alfredo. I really love skillet meals like this delicious one pan pasta dish which makes great use of leftovers and store cupboard ingredients.
I love these type of dishes for several reasons. One, they help me to use up my leftovers in a really delicious way. Secondly, I almost always have everything I need to make them in my cupboards, larder or refrigerator.
Thirdly, I love that they are no fuss and no muss. Everything cooks in the same pan, even the pasta.
They are so easy to throw together and are usually very quickly cooked as well. They are also really easy to reduce, or small-batch into recipes which feed only one or two people, which is exactly what I did today.
Not only that, but they are usually quite adaptable. For instance you can use either cooked turkey in this dish, or you can also use cooked chicken, or even cubed cooked ham. All are equally delicious!
I had cooked a turkey breast at the weekend and wanted to use it up and this was the perfect way to do just that! Perfectly cooked pasta, plenty of turkey, a creamy sauce, some pasta and one of your five a day. You can't beat it.
Oh and lets not forget the bacon! Doesn't everything with bacon taste better? I dare say it does. I have yet to find a food that doesn't go with, or taste better with bacon!
I always have bacon in my freezer. Sometimes I will cook the whole package and then freeze it, ready to take cooked slices out to use in recipes, sandwiches, etc. Or other times I will just freeze the bacon in individual slices.
How I do this is I take each slice of bacon and coil it into a roll and place it onto a baking sheet. I pop it into the freezer and once it is frozen solid, I transfer all of the rolls into a thick freezer bag. They do not stick together in the bag and are very easily chopped from frozen.
Have you ever tried to chop bacon that isn't frozen or cooked? VERY difficult. I promise you if you do this, you will have a problem chopping it no more!
It took me no time at all today to chop and cook my bacon for this recipe. No time at all.
I love recipes where the pasta cooks right in the sauce. They are so easy and you don't have to dirty up an extra pan cooking the pasta. They always cook to perfection and having absorbed some of the cooking liquor, the pasta always tastes great!
I have used fusilli here, but you can use penne, or any other similar type of pasta in the same quantity. It cooks right in the sauce. You only need to cook it to al dente, well actually about a minute short of al dente.
Most good pastas will tell you on the bag the required amount of time to cook their product to al dente. Mine was Garofalo Fusilli, and it said 11 minutes to al dente, so I cooked it for 10.
The pasta cooks in the mixture of cream and stock, along with some onions and garlic. This gives it a really nice flavor.
Once the pasta has cooked, it is time to add the turkey, cooked bacon, some frozen peas and some cheese into the mix.
Then you heat the dish through for a further two to three minutes. Long enough to melt the cheese, heat everything through, thaw the peas, etc. You will have pasta perfection.
The sauce may seem a little bit loose, but don't worry, it thickens up nicely upon standing.
Do try to grate your own cheese for this dish. Use a good Parmesan. Not the stuff in the green tube or pre-grated cheese. They add things to those products to help them flow easier.
This can mess with the integrity of your dish. They can give a granular result which you won't find very appealing.
Also be very judicious when adding salt to the dish. Bacon is a salty ingredient, so is Parmesan cheese. You may not need much salt if any.
Plenty of pepper is okay though. I do so love plenty of pepper.
I adore frozen peas. I only ever buy the petit/baby frozen peas. They are always perfect. I find that when you buy the larger peas you can often get starchy or wooden textured peas in the mix and I hate that.
I am not a huge fan of peas that come from the tin, or that are old and woody textured. When we were children my mother found a dead cricket in the bottom of a can of peas once. That put me off of eating tinned peas altogether.
I thought I hated peas until I tasted frozen ones at a Girl Guide Banquet once. The armed forces base I lived on had put on a turkey dinner for the mothers and daughters and there was frozen peas on the plate.
I remember being quite amazed at how bright green and delicious they were. They converted me back to liking peas. Well, at least frozen baby peas at any rate! (Yes, I am a bit fussy I know! But I like what I like!)
I really hope that you will be encouraged to try this quick, easy and delicious one pan meal for two and soon! I think you will find it really tasty and it is sure to become a firm favorite in your repertoire.
If you are wanting to feed more than two, simply double the ingredients to serve 4, triple to serve 6. The cook timings will stay the same.
A nice salad is excellent on the side of this and I would never turn down a slice of garlic bread or crusty bread is offered one! Leftovers never tasted so good!! Bon Appetit!
Skillet Turkey Alfredo
Yield: 2
Prep time: 5 MinCook time: 17 Mininactive time: 5 MinTotal time: 27 Min
Meals such as this simple, quick skillet meal are my favorites. Everything cooks all together in one pan. No fuss, no muss. You can substitute the cooked turkey for cooked chicken or ham. This is delicious!
Ingredients
- 2 slices of bacon chopped
- 1/2 small onion, peeled and diced
- 1 clove of garlic, peeled and crushed
- 1 cup (240ml) chicken stock
- 1/2 cup (120ml) heavy cream
- 3 ounces (85g/3/4 cup) pasta, uncooked (penne or fusilli work great)
- pinch each salt and black pepper
- 1/2 pound (230g) cooked turkey, ham or chicken, cubed
- 1/2 cup (75g) frozen peas, unthawed
- 1/3 cup (54g) grated Parmesan Cheese
Instructions
- Heat a medium skillet with a lid over moderate heat. Add the bacon. Cook, stirring frequently, until crisp. Remove and drain off all but 1/2 TBS of the fat.
- Add the onion to the fat in the pan, and cook, stirring frequently, until golden. Add the crushed garlic and cook for about 30 seconds longer.
- Stir in the stock, cream and pasta. Bring to the boil, then reduce to low, cover and simmer until the pasta is just barely al dente according to the package directions. (Mine was Garafalo Fusilli and it took 10 minutes.)
- Stir in the turkey, cooked bacon, frozen peas and cheese. Combine well. Cook for a further2 to 3 minutes to heat through and melt the cheese.
- Remove from the heat and leave to stand for 5 minutes. The sauce should thicken upon standing. Serve hot to two very appreciative people!
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As most of you know, I have just moved into a new place. These past six months have been some of the hardest in my life. I would have never thought that at the age of sixty five I would be starting over again with nothing. I had been saying for the last ten years or so that I needed to minimize and de-clutter, but I never got around to it.
Life has a way of surprising of you when you least expect it.
So these past months I have been busy sorting myself out, finding a place to live and then furnishing it, decorating it, etc. I have a ways to go still, but I am slowly getting there.
Its a funny thing. When you think about starting afresh you never thing about having to start with even the most miniscule of belongings. I mean, I had practically nothing. I have had to completely re-fit my kitchen with the basics, and my house for that matter.
That's why I was really excited recently when a Swedish company called Photowall contacted me and asked did I want to try out their product. I wasn't entirely sure that they actually delivered goods to Canada, but I was excited to find out. It turns out that they do! Count me in!
So who are Photowall? They are a company based in Sweden who manufactures and sells wall paper, prints, canvases, etc. The company was started back in 2006 by two brothers, but I will tell you more about that in a bit. First I want to tell you about my experience.
Let me tell you, I was pretty spoilt for choice when it came for me to choose something to try. I looked at literally everything on their site. There is an abundance of things to choose from. I knew I didn't want wall paper, because being in a rental I wasn't sure what I was allowed to put on the walls in that respect and I am pretty happy with the color of my walls as they are.
I do love art and of course have very little to put on my walls. I really love the great Masters, especially Monet. It was a hard choice to make, but I finally settled on this one. It had the right color scheme which I felt would go with my personality and my furniture. I knew it wouldn't clash. I decided to order a canvas. I didn't want to have to buy frames and stuff, and I knew that it wouldn't be in my budget to do so yet. A canvas like this means I don't need a frame.
I ordered and surprisingly it was here within just a few days of my ordering it. I think it was about 5 days. I should have written it down, but I forgot to. I know it arrived very quickly, and there was a holiday weekend in there as well.
I got notification from the courier that they would be delivering my package and was expecting that it was going to be huge. When it arrived, I was really amazed at the size of the package! Wow. A 150cm by 120cm canvas in such little packaging. It was long to be sure, but wow!
How was this going to work out? I had been expecting a full canvas.
Inside the long box was everything to "build" the framework of the canvas along with the canvas, very neatly rolled up in a protective paper wrapper. All of the packaging was recyclable, which I was very impressed with.
All of the hardware was included, along with a heavy duty hook for hanging it. I was a little flummoxed because I have never been really good at putting things together, but I knew who was.
My sister. She is great at putting things together. She has a real eye and a talent for this type of thing. She used to work in a mill, putting together, assembling wood doors. I called upon her to help and she was happy to come over and put her skills to work!
This is the genius at work. (She didn't want me to show her face. Why are we always so worried about how we look. I think she's beautiful.) As you can see she is an expert at these things.
First she measured from the corners for accuracy when putting the wooden bits of the framework on. I have to say the instructions enclosed with the kit were very easy to follow.
There were four stretcher bars to stretch the canvas over. Each one had a side with double backed sticky tape on it to place upon the canvas for stretching. The instructions were very clear about how to position these!
I liked that and so did sis!
It didn't take her long to get each of them in place and folded over so that they fit snuggly against each other. So often you will get things such as this that you need to put together and things won't fit together just right.
These did. Bonus! There was no fiddling about with them!
Once we had the stretcher bars positioned, we needed to apply these metal braces to the insides of them which were used to join the stretcher bars together.
These were fitted with screws which had plastic heads, very easy to screw into the holes which had been pre-drilled into the stretcher bars. Everything fit perfectly and snuggly.
It didn't take very long to do this part of it at all. And my sister is very pedantic about things like this. So if it didn't take her long, then you know its not a hard job to master at all.
Before we knew it, all was in place and we were ready to lift the canvas up to see the end result.
I was so happy with this painting! The colors in it were just beautiful. I was over the moon. My sister is an artist herself and she has really piqued my interest in impressionist art over these last six months. I had bought her pear painting that she did, and I felt this was Monet going to be a wonderful addition to my home!
And there it is hanging on my wall! It goes perfectly with everything else in the room. I am so, SO in love with this. (Sorry for the light from the window on it, I haven't gotten around to getting curtains yet, but I have plans for them!)
This canvas was the perfect addition to my home and I am well pleased with how it fits in. Actually I am well pleased with the whole process I went through to get it. I am pretty sure I will eventually be ordering some more art from them, maybe even some wall paper at some point. Its been a pleasant experience all round.
Ordering it was really easy. You simply find what you want from their vast variety of options to choose from. Then you decide if you want it as wall paper or as a print. Once you have done that, you only need to choose the size or amount that you want. Easy peasy!
The process of choosing and ordering it was totally uncomplicated. I really liked that. Too many companies these days make you jump through too many hoops. They have this whole process streamlined!
From their page: We believe that the walls of a room affect how we feel. You'll find the perfect wallpaper and prints for you in our collection. We are passionate about helping you transform your home to reflect your personality.
The idea of Photowall was born in 2006 when brothers Niklas and Charlie Johansson realised that the selection of personalised wall art on the market was relatively limited.
With their technical background and a keen interest in design, they decided to try something new – printing wallpaper digitally. Without any previous printing experience, the brothers bought their very first digital printing press in 2006 – and Photowall was born!
A company focused on quality, creative design and custom-made products. Photowall is now an established company with its own factory and offices in Skarpnäck near Stockholm, Sweden. From the very beginning, it has been driven by the desire to create and constantly test new ideas.
Creativity and design for you
Our customers style their interiors with wallpaper and canvas prints they love and that express their unique personal style.
We are always on the lookout for new designers, famous brands and innovative illustrators so we can offer the most inspiring wall designs.
We want to give everyone the opportunity to express their creativity on all their walls with just the right personalized motifs and patterns.
We see walls as a giant canvas where our customers can be creative with colors and shapes.
Digital printing technology makes it possible to create almost anything, whether it’s a personal photo, a wallpaper pattern that covers the entire wall or a print. As a fully digital company, we can instantly print a unique order to your measurements. (I love LOVE this idea! I think I may explore this option!)
At our wall mural factory we strive to minimize our environmental impact, and our environmental approach permeates everything we do. All production is to order, which means we only produce the quantity of products required, none are held in stock or discarded unnecessarily.
The printing ink we use for our wallpapers contains no solvents or hazardous chemicals, and is biodegradable. Waste material from our processes is recycled by environmental entrepreneur Hans Andersson Recycling AB.
I love LOVE that they are environmentally aware and like I said, there was nothing in the packaging that was not completely recyclable. I was very pleased about that.
Overall, I have to say that I have been incredibly impressed with this company, with their Ethos, with their delivery service, with their packaging, with their product. Excellent printing quality and service with incredibly fast shipping. I highly recommend this company and their products.
I will be ordering from them again. at some point. I guarantee!
Check our their website
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Many thanks to Photowall for having afforded me this opportunity to try out their product! I was offered free product in exchange for an honest review. Photowall gets The English Kitchen Two Thumbs up stamp of approval on all counts!!
I am also excited to tell you that to show their appreciation Photowall would like to give you this 25% discount code ! It will be valid from June 23 through August 31, 2021: theenglishkitchen2021
Just add the code at checkout!
@photowall_sweden #photowallsweden #interior #wallpaper #wallpaperdesign #style #decor.
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