Sunday, August 31, 2014

Easy "Roasted" Garlic

Hubby Tony and Son Donald decided to clean out the produce drawer and make a Tuscan grilled vegetable salad for dinner. I suggested they add some white beans and turn it into a main dish. They agreed. Mid-afternoon they were busy preparing the eggplant, zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, and onions to go on the grill. I offered to make the vinaigrette that they would toss everything in.

All the dressing ingredients went into the blender and got pureed. That sounded easy enough.  However, when I took a closer look at the recipe I saw that it called for six roasted garlic cloves.  I was NOT going to preheat the oven for that small amount! 

I figured there had to be a way to replicate the texture of roasted garlic without heating the whole kitchen up. A Google search proved me correct. I put the unpeeled cloves in a microwave-safe bowl, added a splash of water, then covered the bowl with a lid and cooked it in the microwave.  Ninety seconds later my garlic was perfectly soft, squishy, and ready to squeeze into the blender.

12 comments:

  1. Thanks for the tip Kathy. I would have found my way around it too. What in the world did we do before microwaves?!

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    1. When I tell young people how I used to do things in the kitchen without a microwave the look at me like I have two heads. I would NOT want to go back to those days.

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  2. I adore roasted garlic. I must talk to Google and see if the microwave can infuse the taste of olive oil and baking into the cloves. I'll bet there's a way.

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  3. very creative solution! Google is invaluable.

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    1. I don't know which is more invaluable, Google or the microwave :-)

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  4. Thank God for Google and the microwave! I use both on an almost daily basis.

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  5. A perfect summertime solution! Prof. Google knows everything!

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