Roasted Garlic, Lemon, and Veggie Soup

When hubs and I first started dating, one of the things I immediately loved about him is the fact that he's an awesome cook.  The first time I saw his apartment, I noticed the all-clad professional series pots and pans -- and I was even more smitten than I already was.

And then, there was the night when he roasted garlic.

I'd had a long and tiring day at work, and since we hadn't yet moved in together, we'd coordinated that I'd go over to his place after leaving the office.  I was feeling reeeallllly tired, but as I was walking down the hall, I noticed that something smelled absolutely delicious.  As I got closer to his apartment, the smell got stronger, and I started drooling.  (I should mention that I frequently sport the Pavlovian dog motif.)  I walked in the door, and Oh.  My.  God.  The smell of roasted garlic was sublime.

In that moment, I knew: he's The One.  No joke.  Love blossomed over roasted garlic.

Hubs and I learned how to roast garlic from reading Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, but Angela at Oh She Glows has a tutorial on the same method that Sir Bittman (in my mind, homeslice has totally been knighted for his sustained awesomeness) recommends -- replete with amazing pictures.

And, since fall has arrived, I've been in serious soup-craving mode.  I love, love, love soups.  They're easy to cook, delicious, and they feel so nourishing and homey that as soon as it starts getting chilly out, I can't get enough of the stuff.  So, I decided to substitute raw garlic for roasted garlic (credit also goes to Angela at OSG for that idea!) in one of my favorite soups.  This one involves garlic, lemon, fresh herbs, veggies, and chickpeas, and the raw-for-roasted substitution brought it to a whole new level of yumminess.

Roasted Garlic, Lemon, Veggie, and Chickpea Soup
1 onion
3 carrots
2 celery stalks
2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 lemon
1 head of garlic
1 1/2 GF pasta (I like Tinkyada tricolor fusili)
1 vegetable boullion cube
Fresh rosemary, thyme, and oregano
3 cups water

While the garlic is roasting, chop up the onion and cook, with olive oil, over medium-high heat until browned.

While the onions are browning, chop the carrots and celery, and make a bouquet garnis by tying twine around the fresh herbs:

Add the carrots and celery to the onions, and stir.

Add the chickpeas, water and the boullion cube, and tie the bouquet garnis to the side of the pot (basically, this is so it doesn't get lost in the soup -- fishing out a pack o' herbs when all you want to do is eat isn't fun).

Once the veggies are almost tender, add the pasta.  Let it all cook until the pasta is al dente and the veggies are tender, at which point it's, shall we say, copacetic (I've been wanting to use that word for days now!  Huzzah!) to retrieve the bouquet garnis.

At this point, the garlic should be roasted, soft, and freaking delicious.  Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves into a bowl, mash them into a paste, and add to the soup.  As a finishing touch, squeeze the juice of one lemon into the soup and stir.  Garnish with a pinch of salt and pepper, serve hot, and enjoy!

Strawberry-Oat Bars

I have a thing for oatmeal.  I also have a thing for gooey desserts.  And yet another thing for strawberries.

Naturally, the perfect storm of all these things would be an ooey gooey dessert bar involving oats and strawberries.  I'd been shopping at the Whole Foods in my old 'hood (it's a gazillion times bigger and more well-stocked than the Whole Foods in my new 'hood, which has the dubious distinction of being one of the smallest stores in the country while also being one of the busiest...ergo, the perpetual shitshow that plagues my local WF), and I stumbled across some Bob's Red Mill GF Oat Flour.

My mind, it went a reelin'.

I suddenly had approximately 8 bajillion ideas for what to do with said GF oat flour.  GF granola bars!  Fruity oat squares!  OMFG!

Happily, there was a recipe for raspberry oatmeal bars on the back of the packaging.  I modified it a bit and changed the raspberries to strawberries, and whipped up some strawberry oat bars for a friend's baby shower.

These are inspired by and based largely upon Bob's Red Mill Raspberry Oatmeal Bars, which was apparently adapted from 1,000 Gluten-Free Recipes by Carol Fenster.  So, this is an adaptation of the adaptation.  (The original, I'm told, should be available at http://1000glutenfreerecipes.com/.)  My adaptation substitutes brown sugar for white sugar, omits the lemon zest, substitutes strawberry jam for raspberry jam, and incorporates fresh strawberries.

1/2 cup Earth Balance
2 teaspoons, divided, of vanilla extract
1 cup GF oats
1 cup GF oat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2/3 cup strawberry jam
2/3 cup fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced

Step one: preheat oven to 375, Pam/grease the hell out of an 8x8 inch pan (or use parchment paper, which was my approach), and melt thy Earth Balance!

Step 2: Combine the melted earth balance with 1 teaspoon of the vanilla.  Stir in all the other ingredients except the jam and the berries.

I'm always tempted to hum "Hail to the Chief" whenever I bust out the Kitchen Aid.

Step 3: Mix together the jam and the berries (one could say that the ingredients, after being mixed together, are jammin'?  Bah, sorry, that was terrible.  I should warn you, dear reader, that I'm prone to making some truly heinous puns).  Stir in remaining teaspoon of vanilla.

Step 4:  Press the oat mixture firmly on the bottom of the pan.  Layer the berry-jam mixture on top, and bake for 25 minutes.  Cool the bars in a pan for 30 minutes before serving.  And by "serving," I mean "reveling in the ooey-gooey sweet deliciousness."

Random Facts

Today was one of THOSE days at work: you know, a day when you spend the day feeling uber-stressed, stay late, get stuck in the rain during your seemingly futile attempt to come home...yeah.  Once I actually got home, I had no desire to cook anything post-worthy - the couch and the TV are sooooo appealing tonight!  So, in lieu of a food post, I bring you...random facts.

The back story: I used to hate it when my Facebook news feed would fill up with various “take this survey!” posts.  After reading a few peoples' responses, however, I quickly grew to really like them. I learned a tremendous amount about the friends I’d reconnected with, and I thought it was awesome.  So, in that spirit, I decided I’d do a little something like it here so that you, dear reader, can learn about more than just my love of pumpkin and soy lattes.  So, here goes nothing!

My astrological sign is Aquarius (and I have the apparently typical Aquarius traits of  both extroversion and fierce independence, to boot).

I turned 30 in January, and so far I love being in my 30s.  I feel a million times more confident and self-assured now than I did 10 years ago, and I keep hearing people say that their 30s were their best decade…so I’m pretty stoked.

At my 30th birfday party

The first time I traveled outside the U.S., I went to Russia.  I was 16 and on a high school cultural exchange tip, and we were there for 3 weeks.  I didn’t speak an ounce of Russian, my host family didn’t speak much English (they’d had to look hard to find the one family that didn’t smoke), and although I was scared out of my wits and incredibly homesick at first, it wound up being awesome. I totally caught the travel bug as a result.

Speaking of international travel, I lived in Israel for a year when I was in my 20s.  I also arrived there not speaking a lick of Hebrew, but I spent the year in intensive language immersion – and by the time I came home, I was forgetting how to say things in English. (Oy!)

My favorite movie is  How To Train Your Dragon (can we talk about how freaking cute it is that the dragons zonk out when people scratch them under their chins?!).

I’m incapable of sleeping past 8 AM.  I’ve never been able to do this, even when I was a teenager – no matter what, my brain is all “LET’S WAKE UP NOW!  IT’LL BE SUPERFUNTIMES!” between 7-7:30.  If I sleep past 8, it usually means I’m sick.

I recently got hitched!  Hubs and I got married on July 30, 2011 – and with apologies for the schmaltz, I couldn’t have asked for a better person to spend my life with.  Homeslice is unquestionably my soul mate and my partner on every level.  I thought I’d get all verklempt while we said our vows, but he and I grinned at each other like fools through the entire ceremony.

If pressed, I'll admit that I totally did the running man, among other ridiculous dance moves, at the reception.

My addictions, which are raging, include caffeine, Facebook, exercise, and sunlight.

A wide smattering of my favorite things – replete with factoids! – includes cooking, reading (the best part about being done with grad school is having time to read for fun), traveling, Thai food, modern art, old-school jazz, city lights, knowing that I can be totally goofy and ridiculous with my husband and he’ll love me anyway, beauty products, learning about health and nutrition, football season (GO BRONCOS!), hockey (GO AVS!), fall foliage, fresh flowers, running, summer in Colorado, spending time with my parents and brother, Sunday brunch, celebrity gossip, Monty Python, GF blueberry pancakes, epic phone calls with my BFF (she lives in Seattle), Thanksgiving, pedicures, and cacti (they remind me of home).  And, wait for it...pumpkin and soy lattes.

With my BFF (we've been besties since 1st grade)

Least favorite things:  Public speaking, clutter, pollen, rules that make no sense, PMS, summer in DC, aggressive drivers, insomnia, politics, large crowds, stress, cigarette smoke, managing crises at work, bees, humidity, rain that lasts for days, Metrofail.

I’ve herded goats.  No joke.  While I was in Israel, I spent a day at a leadership and teamwork camp.  One of our tasks was to herd a bunch of sheep and goats into an area demarcated with a circle of rocks and hold them there for 10 seconds. Let me tell you, it wasn't easy. I'm not going to quit my day job in order to be a shepherd, that's for sure.

"Oh HELL NO you're not leaving this circle!"

I have a maddening number of vices, all of which are like kryptonite for my willpower and self-control.  Such things include magazines (I’m subscribed to Vogue, InStyle, Self, Real Simple, and Elle Décor…holy crap, that’s a lot), Target (I shouldn’t be let in without an escort), ice cream (I’m looking at you, Edy’s Peppermint), home décor (Crate & Barrel calls my name whenever I walk past), and the Monster Cookies my husband bakes (he calls me the Monster Cookie Cookie Monster).

My favorite songs are  “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis and “Gypsy” by Fleetwood Mac.

Every time I watch Austin Powers or Zoolander, I laugh so hard I wind up crying and wheezing. 

What I Ate Wednesday (My 6th WIAW!)

I love almost everything about fall.  I love the vibrant colors, the (mostly) gorgeous weather, the arrival of pumpkins at the grocery (!!!), knowing that Thanksgiving and Christmas are around the bend...but I don't love the increasingly waning hours of sunlight.

Confession: I'm a sunlight junkie.  Hubs has speculated that perhaps I'm part plant, because I feel weak and all blah-like without a good amount of sunlight in my life (apparently photosynthesis is a key chapter in the manual for Proper Care and Feeding of Your Lillian).

In addition to the lack of photosynthesis time as the days grow shorter, the fact that it's pitch dark at 6 a.m. makes it awfully hard to pull myself out of bed.  I love it at the height of summer, when at 6:15 light starts streaming in through the shades.  Those days usually see me bounding out of bed at the crack of dawn and, no lie, being really stoked about it.  These days, by contrast, see me sloooooowly joining the world of the living and sloooooowly draaaaaaagiiiing my butt out of bed.

Which, of course, makes coffee an even more critical part of my morning.

And, speaking of coffee, it's the first item in this week's What I Ate Wednesday, a virtual potluck hosted by the fabulous Jenn of Peas and Crayons.  I love WIAW - it's a fantastic foodie forum (oooh, alliteration!), and I love seeing what people are cooking and eating.

First things first: my beloved almond mocha.

Breakfast:  It's raining buckets here (AGAIN...oy), so I decided to go for some soul-soothing pumpkin pie steel-cut oats.

Snacks!  I'm a serious grazer, so snacks are a maaaaajor part of my day.  Today's snacks consist of grapes, an apple, Greek yogurt, EnviroKidz GF rice bar. I brazenly love all things EnviroKidz, even though they're designed for kids who are, like, 25 years younger than me.  :-/  Some things not pictured here: the snacks I know I'll consume (stash of almonds that I keep at work: I'm lookin' at you, kid) and agua, agua, agua!  I've been dehydrated like a mofo lately, so I'm trying to get a lot more water in my life.

Lunch:  I made a vegan, GF lemon-roasted garlic soup last night (recipe will show up here tomorrow!), so I decided to take some of that delicious business plus a slice of nutty, multi-grain garlic bread for lunch.

Dinner:  East Coast rainy days usually make me homesick for Colorado, and what's a girl to do when she's homesick but unable to be anywhere near her homeland?  Make Lazy Girl Toastadas, so that at least her dinner can be something that reminds her of her favorite state.

Hope everyone has a fabulous Wednesday - happy WIAW to one and all!

Nutty, Garlicky, Multi-Grain GF Bread

There are times when I find myself feeling pretty mopey.  (In a lot of these cases, I look at the calendar and am like, "Ohhhhh, this is raging PMS."  Fun!)  When the blues strike, I go straight for my coping mechanisms: exercise, cooking, and carbs.

I would probably die if I went on the Atkins Diet.

Happily, though, I wouldn't touch that particular regimen with a ten-foot pole -- so when I started feeling mopey, I decided it was time to bake some bread.

The back story on this bread idea is that when I was 16, we moved from Colorado to Williamsport, PA.  Williamsport is a small town in the middle of north-central Pennsylvania, and it's...well, let's just say it's fairly isolated.  When I was living there, the only really good store in town was the Wegmans -- but holy crap, was it ever fantastic.  I loved shopping there because there was so much phenomenal food.  One of the many selections of deliciousness offered there was a garlic bread with cloves of garlic baked in, and OMFG.  It was sublime, and I wanted to try to re-create it.

Garlic and rosemary, reporting for duty.

Now, that said, I didn't have much hope for this bread.  First, gluten-free baking projects tend to be difficult.  Secondly, I was kind of freelancing it by adding a few things to the recipe -- and generally speaking, when I add things to an existing recipe it ends badly.  So I tossed things into the mixer, convinced that an epic fail was on the horizon.

There was no hope.  Sigh.

Except there was hope: after about 30 minutes in the oven, it started smelling gooooooood.  I perked up a bit.  After an hour, I started thinking I might have a winner on my hands.

When I pulled it out of the oven, it looked good (like legit bread!).  And it smelled delicious.  I broke off a small piece while it was cooling, and it was really, really yummy.  The sunflower seeds, flax, and almond flour make it fabulously nutty -- and the chunks of garlic created a savory, buttery taste to boot.  This packs a ton of protein and healthy fats, as well as a good amount of iron.  Woohoo!

Nutty, Garlicky, Multi-Grain "All Is Not Lost" Bread:

1 package Bob's Red Mill Hearty Whole Grain bread mix (including the yeast packet, which should be added to 1 3/4 cups warm water)
1/2 cup finely ground almond flour
1/2 cup olive oil
10 cloves of garlic, peeled and added whole into the batter
1 tablespoon dried onion flakes
3 eggs (or, for vegan friends, flax egg or Ener-G Egg Replacer)
1 tablespoon Italian herbs
1/4 cup flax seeds

You can then follow the directions on the back of the package:  add the yeast packet in the bread mix to warm water, per the instructions on the packaging.  Once the yeast is bubbly/frothy, add all the ingredients into a mixer and mix until completely combined.  Pour the batter into a 9x5 bread pan, and cover it with plastic wrap.  Set it somewhere warm, and let it rise for about 40 minutes.  Then back at 375 for 60-70 minutes, or until the internal temperature reaches 205.  (I had to bake mine for 70 minutes, probably because of the extra ingredients I added to the batter.)  Let cool.

Serve with Earth Balance (or the topping of your choice), and enjoy!

Almond Mocha = LURVE

I love pretty much anything almond flavored, and I love love love almonds themselves.  (I'm terrified that when hubs and I have kids, they'll have nut allergies that will prohibit the presence of almonds in my home.  Noooooo!)

My Dad also got me hooked on mochas.  When I was in college an in desperate need of something to keep me awake, Dad was the one suggesting I take the plunge and start drinking coffee, and he suggested delicious, velvety, chocolatey mochas.  And holy crap, am I ever glad he did.  They're ridiculously good.

When I was working my first job after college, I decided to combine my two favorite coffee drinks -- mochas and almond soy lattes -- into a delicious concoction.  Since getting my beloved espresso machine, the almond mocha has made a comeback, big time.  I may hate getting up in the morning, but I love getting my hands on a hot almond mocha.

Dear espresso machine, Mommy loves you. Besos, Lillian

I make mine with espresso, but this could easily be done with drip coffee too.  Plus, it's insanely easy to make:

Heat a mug full of chocolate soy milk (I use Silk Light).  Once it's hot, combine it with espresso and 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract.  (If you're doing this with drip coffee, I'd recommend using the soy milk as the creamer and adding a smudge less almond extract.)

Stir, sip, and lurve!

Wild Rice Pilaf With Carrots, Chickpeas, and Dill

I'm not sure if anyone else is like this, but I find that an embarrassing percentage of my best dishes are kind of thrown together at the last second.  They're also largely inspired by whatever I happen to have in the pantry/fridge, so they're put together totally on the fly.  My husband, by contrast, is methodical: he looks through cookbooks on the weekend, determines what dishes he plans to cook, and makes his grocery list accordingly.  I, on the other hand, am more like a discombobulated tornado: I'll frantically look around the kitchen while thinking "Crap, I'm so hungry!  Oh, I have a few random ingredients?  I guess they'll go together..."  (*Throws said random ingredients into pan and hopes for the best*)

(20 minutes later)  "OMG, they do go together!"

I then do a happy dance around the kitchen.  It's the little things, folks.

This was one of those recipes.  It was one of those nights when I'd worked late, I was tired as hell, and I needed to whip something up quickly.  I'd had wild rice pilaf a gazillion times before, and I love cooked carrots with dill -- so I decided on a whim to combine them.  I added chickpeas for some protein (a side note on chickpeas: I effing adore these things), and I was quite pleasantly surprised by the result.

Wild Rice Pilaf With Carrots, Chickpeas, and Dill

1 cup cooked wild rice (I like Lunberg Japonica blend)
1 cup baby carrots
1/2 cup chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 Tablespoons olive oil
Dried onion to taste
Dill to taste
Salt and pepper to taste

Steam and cook the carrots until tender.  While they're cooking (and assuming the rice is already cooked), add the olive oil to a heavy-bottomed pan.  Once it's hot, add the chickpeas and onion flakes, and saute until crispy and lightly browned.  Add the rice and combine the mixtures; once the rice and garbanzos are all mixed together and hot, remove from heat and add the carrots.  Top with dill, salt, and pepper.