Glorious Garlic

This week Lufa farms gave us the gift of garlic. Garlic keeps well in the fridge, but why not make the most of its germ killing properties in one delicious dose? I decided to treat myself to some fine tasting roasted garlic and let that inspire me. From there, I made some amazing roasted garlic and rep pepper soup, and a hybrid guacamole dip. Enjoy!

Roasted Garlic and Red Pepper Soup

Ingredients:

2 bulbs roasted garlic

4 roasted red peppers

4-5 shallots or a small onion

1 medium tomato

3 tbs. olive oil

6 cups vegetable stock

1 tsp. dried basil

1 tsp. dried oregano

½ tsp. chili flakes

salt and pepper to taste.

Start by roasting your garlic and peppers.

Slice the tops off the garlic and seed the peppers and cut them in half. Drizzle the garlic with olive oil. You can be generous with the oil because you can throw it into the soup later or keep it in the fridge for up to a week. Lay the peppers skin side up and place into 450 degree oven until garlic turns brown (30 minutes).

Your peppers will need about 10 minutes more for their skin to char. Let the veggies cool until you can peel the skin off of the peppers and squeeze the roasted cloves out of their papery shells.

Start frying the onion and tomato in olive oil until fragrant and soft. Add the rest of the ingredients and let simmer for about 20 minutes. Liquify the soup in the blender or food processor and return to pot to simmer for 10 minutes more.

This soup tasted great enriched with a drizzle of cream!

I had some extra parsley and cream cheese hanging around in the fridge so I decided to experiment, so I made some hybrid guac. This dip had a great contrast of deep rich flavor from the roasted garlic and lots of zing from the parsley.

Ingredients:

2 bulbs roasted garlic

2 ripe avocados

2 tbs. cream cheese

4 tbs. chopped parsley

juice of half a lemon

salt and pepper to taste

Bung everything in a food processor or mash with a fork. Done. I ate mine with celery and crackers, yummy!