Easy way to cook with fresh garlic

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Microplane Fine Grater

Microplane Fine Grater

This post goes hand-in hand with a previous post on Easy way to cook with onions.

We love fresh garlic in our food. But it is another thing to chop it up with a knife every time you want to eat. Ugh…. We always had some big chunks that would be overwhelming when you bit into the big piece in you meal.

Now for the sake of convince, we have tried a number of kinds of pre-chopped garlic. They were all good, don’t get us wrong but just not our favorite.

We would always return to purchasing the fresh garlic heads and enjoy all the wonderful flavor.

Finally, we have figured out a great way to cook with fresh garlic every time we want to: Follow the advice of Rachel Ray.  Use a Micro plane grater hand grater.

The funny thing about this story is that we used to watch Rachel Ray’s 30 Minute Meals show a lot (in the days before Graduate school). We watched her use the Microplane Fine Grater many, many, many times. And even thought we owned a Microplane grater, we waited for years before trying it ourselves. Eeks! It is almost too embarrassing to tell this story….

Anyway one evening, quite recently in fact,  we were faced with chopping fresh garlic cloves and  suddenly we remembered how Rachel grated up her garlic, and we pulled the grater out of the drawer and …. we….used it!

Well, we have never looked back. The Microplane Fine Grater works like a charm and reduces 2 cloves of garlic to a spoonful of wonderful fresh paste in seconds.

Note: watch your fingers when you use this sharp product.

We also use it for grating up fresh gingerroot and some hard cheeses (like parmesan).

We LOVE this grater, and can’t believe that we waited so long before trying it out. We bet you will also love it as well.  We are including the Amazon link for your shopping convenience- this makes a great gift for someone who loves to cook!

Trader Joe’s Easy Soup Recipe

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Trader Joe's EZ Soup

Trader Joe's EZ Soup

Here is an easy soup recipe that we made last night. We like to have the basic ingredients on hand for those nights when you wish  to  make a quick soup. Like those  days when the weather gets suddenly cool and you think “gee I wish we could have soup tonight”  without a lot of prep and running around.

We call this Trader Joe’s EZ soup.

This soup starts with some basic ingredients, and then you can add other items to jazz it up, or leave it as is- that is up to you.

Another idea: make this soup on a weekly basis, as an easy and  great way to use up leftover vegetables and meat and rice and pasta. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination (and how hungry you are)

Basic Ingredients

  • Trader Joe’s Stock in a box- any kind you like
  • Trader Joe’s Organic Foursome frozen mixed veggies
  • Trader Joe’s garbanzo beans
  • Trader Joe’s white beans

How to:

Combine these ingredients in a pan and heat till boiling, then simmer for 5- 30 minutes to blend the flavors. If you have the time/ desire, cook some diced onions and garlic in the pan for 5 minutes before adding the beans. Then you can season the soup with salt and pepper, Trader Joe’s seasoning blends or whatever you prefer.

Variations:

Italian Soup:

  • ½ to 1 jar spaghetti sauce (good way to use up leftovers)
  • Cooked short noodles like penne
  • Trader Joe’s Italian seasoning mix
  • Cooked sausages cut into chunks

Chicken soup:

  • Add leftover diced chicken
  • Egg noodles or cooked rice
Trader Joe's EZ soup with Pork

Trader Joe's EZ soup with Pork

Here is one of our Trader Joe’s EZ soups with some leftover smoked pork shoulder and a can of diced green chilies added for some kick!  (go leftovers, go leftovers- our neighbor just LOVED this soup).

Enjoy this recipe and let us know how you jazzed up your Trader Joe’s EZ soup

5 Easy Ways to Cook with Pesto

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Trader Joe's Pesto

Trader Joe's Pesto

What exactly  is pesto you ask??

Pesto is a thick sauce made from fresh basil leaves, garlic, olive oil, parmesan cheese and pine nuts. All these ingredients are blended together until a smooth paste is formed. There are many ways that you can use pesto to add a wonderful flavor to your meals. Trader Joe’s sells a nice little jar of pesto that frequently is seen in our refrigerator.

Here are 5 of our favorite ways to use pesto:

1. Pasta

Yep, our number one way to eat pesto is with noodles. We like to toss the hot noodles with a couple of spoonfuls of pesto and then mix in a little parmesan cheese and black pepper. You can serve the noodles plain, or add some cooked broccoli or your favorite vegetable to this dish as well.

2. Steamed Vegetables

This is a wonderful way to make sure you eat your vegetables. We just steam up our favorite vegetables (say green beans or broccoli) and then drain away any extra water. Now toss the hot veggies with a spoonful (or two) of pesto and add some pepper (to taste) and enjoy.

3. Pesto Mayo

A quick dip or spread idea the next time you need one is pesto mayo. It is easy to make:  a spoonful of pesto and ½ cup of mayo (Start with these proportions and add more pesto if you like it a bit stronger). Season up with some salt and/ or black pepper and enjoy. This pesto mayo is also good as a sandwich spread with cheese or turkey slices. Experiment and see how many ways you can enjoy this spread.

4. Pesto on a flat bread or  frozen pizza

Pesto right from the jar makes a tasty addition to a plain flatbread or frozen plain pizza. Spread the pesto thinly onto the frozen bread of choice and heat in the oven following the package directions. You may wish to add some cheese on top. YUM! We made this one night when a “surprise” guest arrived, and we were up late talking. We had a couple of pita breads in the freezer and spread the pesto on the frozen bread. Then we tossed on whatever cheese we had and heated them up in the oven at 400 degrees for maybe 10 minutes. We waited until the cheese was nice and bubbly. Not too bad for an “emergency” snack- and our friend raved on and on about how great it tasted.

5. Eggs

This one is the most odd, but then next time you make scrambled eggs and are adding leftover vegetables or potatoes to the eggs, try a small spoonful of pesto as well. The sauce never blends into the scrambled eggs entirely in the bowl, but once the eggs hit the pan the pesto melts and flavors the entire dish. This is a great way to use up some leftovers from other meals, and to also enjoy “breakfast for dinner” in a new way.

Remember that experimenting and trying new things is the fun part of cooking.  We recommend that you start with only a small amount at first, maybe 1/2 a small spoonful and then taste the dish. If you think that there is not enough flavor, add more pesto a little at time until you like the taste.  Eventually, the more you cook and try new flavors, the more confident you will be.

These are our top 5 ways to enjoy that small jar of pesto. What are your favorite ways to use pesto?

Easy Tasty Garlic Bread

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Trader Joe's Toast

Trader Joe's Toast

Do you love garlic bread?  We do too!

We used to only eat garlic bread when we were enjoying a bowl of pasta or some other Italian –inspired dish.  As there are only two of us, it was hard at times to justify purchasing this huge loaf of bread as we would never finish it before it got all hard and stale (not to mention all those unpronounceable ingredients).

Now with this new recipe, we can enjoy eating garlic bread with all kinds of meals such as soups stews as well as when we are eating pasta. This recipe is great for small families or singles who want to enjoy garlic bread as you can make as much as you need (a slice or two for each person) and not have half a loaf of garlic bread leftover.

Here is our easy recipe to make garlic bread at home that has a ton of flavor and few ingredients (and no “weird” stuff).  We are not sure where we first saw this idea. Maybe a TV program or we read it in a cookbook perhaps- who knows- (quite possibly Rachel Ray) …Wherever we gathered this idea from- THANKS! We just love to make our garlic bread this way. If you are just learning 2 cook, this is a great, easy addition to any meal. We bet you will make this garlic bread again and again.

Trader Joe's garlic

Trader Joe's garlic bread

Ingredients:

  • A “sturdy” loaf of bread, such as Trader Joe’s Artisan bread (Roasted garlic with Thyme or Asiago cheese are both good)
  • Garlic cloves (Trader Joe’s Colossal  Garlic )
  • Trader Joe’s salted Butter (or olive oil if you like)

Lets Cook!

Basically what we are going to do here, is toast the bread, and rub the dry toasty bread with a piece of garlic and then spread with butter. So you need to cut and toast the amount of bread that you would like to eat/serve per person.  The bread also needs to be hearty or sturdy- like a handmade or Artisan loaf (sourdough works great too) with a thick crust and a chewy texture.

Colossal Garlic
Colossal Garlic

Next, peel a whole clove of garlic, and cut off one of the tips. Now rub the cut clove over the surface of the hot toasty bread. Don’t forget to rub the crusts with the garlic clove too.

Now, spread the garlicky bread with butter (or drizzle with some olive oil).

That’s it! Enjoy!!

Yes it is THAT easy to make really great garlic bread.  Now that you are trying some new recipes at home, we hope you give this one a try. It would be great served up with a home made soup, pasta meal or anything really… Do you really  need an excuse to enjoy great garlic bread?

Trader Joe's Roasted Garlic w/ Thyme

Trader Joe's Roasted Garlic w/ Thyme