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How To Make Garlic Aioli

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Add Garlic Aioli to your meal tonight!

Garlic Aioli is a wonderful garlicky mayonnaise that add a wonderful “something extra” to a wide variety of vegetables and meats. I like to make it when I have an assortment of raw veggies for dinner- as a dip with a punch. Another way I use Aioli is to jazz up my leftovers- it really makes cold cooked potatoes come to life.

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Garlic Aioli is so easy and flavorful, it is a great recipe to have on hand and make at the last minute to make a meal shine.

Here is the super easy way to have delicious garlic aioli: 

Spoon some mayo into a small bow, say 1/2 cup

Add 1 or 2 cloves freshly grated garlic to taste – start with 1 clove (or even a 1/2 clove and taste to see how strong the flavor is before adding the rest of the clove).

Add a pinch of sea salt, and freshly ground pepper.

Optional: squeeze fresh lemon juice in the garlic Aioli

That is all there is to it!  Super easy, right??

Need some ideas of how to use your Garlic Aioli? Check out this list: 

  • Serve with cooked Potatoes – hot or cold
  • Dip your Steamed asparagus in Garlic Aioli
  • Use as a spread on a sandwich
  • Use as a dip for raw veggies (great with carrots)
  • Fantastic with plain shrimp served hot or cold.

So whip up a batch of Garlic Aioli today and see how many meals will be just that much better because of the addition of a little zippy mayo!

 

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!

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