Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Mary,

Thanks for the offer! We had company, though, a friend who just moved back to SF from NYC. Made fusilli with roasted peppers & brocolli, and caramelized garlic bread.

I don't think I would turn that down. What is caramelized garlic bread? I almost don't care, I just really, really want some...

Mary

PS the soup turned out really good. It is a recipe that S-mom from TOB sent me once. On to planning next week's soup.

Mary,

I make my own garlic olive oil, by simmering garlic in the oil at about 250F for 20 minutes. At the end of that time, the garlic cloves are all brown and carmelized; I strain them out and reserve the oil. Then I mash the carmelized garlic with butter and parsley, spread it on slices of bread, and broil it.

That sounds fantastic, I will have to give that a go (and I bet that garlic oil is pretty good too). Do you do it in the oven? Covered with oil?
I have been able to get smoked fresh garlic at the grocery store for the past few months too and that is good in garlic bread too.

Mary

Mary,

No, on the stove. Small copper pot with a flame tamer.

Mary,

I decided the oil should be a blog post: http://www.fuzzychef.org/archives/Make- ... -2009.html

Thanks Josh! Just wondering if using a coffee filter would work to strain the oil? I have normal metal sieves but I think that would do a better job. Just wondering if anything speaks against it.

Mary

Mary,

I don't think the oil would go through a coffee filter. I have an oil skimmer which has a really really fine mesh which I can use (it's for cleaning deep frying oil). Generally I just use a regular 1/16" fine mesh strainer, though, since I'm not really that concerned about it.

Then I am not concerned either!

Back to soup. I made chicken cheddar chowder from Cooking Light last night. It got 3 thumbs up and one " I know I like chicken and cheddar and every single thing that is in this soup but I also like chocolate which doesn't mean you should put it in soup". I am hoping I survive the wonder years.

Mary

I had a good spiced pumpkin soup at the Napa Valley Grille (in the Maul of America - don't laugh - my boss took us there for lunch). Anyhoo, I thought I would see if I could find a recipe for it. As luck would have it, Napa Valley Grille has 5 recipes posted on their website, and this was one of them. However, as I perused the recipe, I noticed that there was no way it would work with the quantities listed. It called for only 1 lb. of pumpkin puree - which is one can - yet called for 6 cups of broth, a whole onion, and 1 1/2 cups of cream. There is either a typo or they were bad at math when they reduced that recipe from the commercial-sized batch. I halved all of the ingredients except the pumpkin, and made a couple of tweaks to the amounts of seasoning, and it turned out great. It's sweet, but not cloying. I really liked it, our dinner guest devoured it, but Greg was not too impressed. He's not a fan of pureed soups, though, so I take his reply with a grain of salt. So if you use the recipe on the Napa Valley Grille website, double the amount of pumpkin or halve everything else as a starting point. I like the seemingly odd combination of spices.