Pretty in Pink

I made one of my favorite pasta dishes today for my mother who just returned home from the hospital. I'm trying to help her get her appetite and strength back by cooking her yummy, nutritious foods. With my garlic seasonings in tow, I prepared "Mashed Cauliflower with Roasted Garlic"* topped with fresh parmesan cheese yesterday and then today I made her a roasted butternut squash and kale pasta dish. I did something different this time: I added a couple chopped beets and it turned everything a pale pink -- beautiful and nutritious! I used to not like beets, but I found that they are very good roasted with some olive oil and my garlic seasoning. So, for the record, when I write my cookbook, here's the title of this new recipe... this one's for you, mom!

Pretty in Pink
1 2-3 pound butternut squash, washed (not peeled), seeded, chopped into 1-inch cubes
2 med-large yellow onions, coarsely chopped
1 large or 2 medium beets, chopped
1 bunch kale, remove stems then chop the leaves**
1/2 to 1 package turkey bacon, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces (or real bacon if you want)
3-5 cloves garlic, leave skins on to roast (remember the number of cloves)
a few tablespoons olive oil
a few teaspoons Garlic Earth Italian Garlic Seasoning
1 - 1 1/2 lb "sturdy" pasta, such as corkscrew or rigatoni
a few teaspoons olive oil
a few shakes Garlic Earth Italian Garlic Seasoning
8 oz feta cheese (reduced-fat works well)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In a large roasting dish or casserole dish, combine all ingredients except the last four. Stir well to coat veggies and bacon with the oil and seasoning. Roast in the oven for at least 1 hour, until beets and squash are tender with a fork, stirring about every 20 minutes.

About 20 minutes into roasting, start a pot of boiling water for the pasta. Cook the pasta until al dente -- cook for 1 - 2 minutes less than what's called for.

Drain, but do not rinse, pasta when done. Put pasta back into pot, drizzle a few teaspoons of olive oil and a few shakes of seasoning onto pasta, then gently stir.

When the roasting is complete, pull out all of the garlic cloves to let cool a little -- when able to touch, squeeze out the roasted garlic pulp into veggie mixture and stir.

Toss the veggies, bacon and pasta together. Top with feta cheese and serve. OMG -- you'll taste why this is one of my favorite pasta dishes!

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*I followed a basic mashed potato recipe, but steamed 2 chopped cauliflower heads instead of potatoes. I heated 1 cup milk with 2 teaspoons Italian Seasoning, combined with some Smart Balance, then whipped into cauliflower. Top with cheese, serve.
**The easiest way to destem kale is to fold the leaf in half at the stem, then trim off the stem with a knife. Here's a picture that I borrowed from another blog of a stem that has been removed from a kale leaf:

Intermission: Jack's Sunflower

Take time to enjoy the flowers. Here's my son's sunflower given to him by his Grandma. It's actually smaller than it appears, but we're anxious to see how big it gets.

Back to the kitchen... time to zest the limes for my next batch of Southwest Seasoning!

Best Bean Salsa EVER

In case you are unfamiliar with a poblano pepper, here's a picture of one next to a chef knife (picture from eHow webpage). I call it a "mild jalapeno on steroids". You can see it's similar in shape to a jalapeno pepper, but much larger and fatter. This is one of the Bean Salsa ingredients and it's also in the Southwest Garlic Seasoning, but roasted.


I heard about this recipe on the NPR doctor call-in show, Zorba Paster on Your Health. It’s a very healthy, quick and beautiful recipe – best “black bean salsa” I’ve ever tasted. I made it twice in one week! I changed it a little bit, being my mother's daughter, unable to actually stick to a recipe (I'm thankful for that!) and here’s what I came up with. I added the lime, poblano pepper instead of jalapeno, sauted the onion and pepper, and added the Southwest Seasoning. We truthfully tried it without the Southwest Seasoning and it was so much better with. Enjoy!

Ingredients
1+ tsp. olive oil
1 cup chopped onion (Vidalia, red or yellow)
1 poblano or bell pepper, chopped (if using poblano, then no jalapeno or chilies)
1 jalapeno, chopped OR 1 Tbsp. green chilies
1 cup celery, chopped
1 15 oz can Pinto beans (drained and rinsed)
1 15 oz can Black beans (drained and rinsed)
1 12 - 15 oz can Shoepeg corn (or corn nibblets) (drained)
1 small jar pimentos, drained
the juice from 1 lime

Dressing
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 tsp. Garlic Earth Southwest Garlic Seasoning
1/4 cup olive oil

Saute the onion and bell pepper in a small pan over medium-low heat in a teaspoon or so of olive oil. While that’s cooking, drain and rinse the beans. Throw the corn and pimentos on top of the rinsed beans and let it all drain. In a medium bowl, combine the beans, celery, corn, onions, peppers, chilies, pimentos and lime juice. In the same pan, over low heat, simmer the vinegar, sugar and Southwest Garlic Seasoning for a few minutes to melt the sugar.

Add the dressing to the beans and veggies, toss gently with the olive oil and serve with Southwest Wonton Chips or scoops. This also goes very well with baked tortilla scoops, as well. You'll see what I mean by "beautiful" -- it's so colorful with the red, pink, green, black and yellow, ... it's healthy and it tastes SO good.

Southwest Garlic Seasoning was the Hit Today!

First of all, welcome new Garlic Earth customers! We had such a fun time meeting so many nice people at the O'Fallon Farmers and Artists Market earlier today. The Southwest Garlic Seasoning was the most popular today. We can't wait to demo our Asian Marinade recipe that we make with the Asian Garlic Seasoning. We hope to have our grill going next time so that we can share the Asian stir fry and balsamic marinade, the latter which is made with the Italian Garlic Seasoning (the recipe for the balsamic marinade is in a previous post below).

I will post the recipe for a Bean Salsa that I made last week. It's very easy, nutritious, and so good. I first heard the recipe on an NPR health show, then I tweaked it a little bit. It has corn, black beans, pinto beans, celery, peppers, onion, the juice of a fresh lime, the Southwest Garlic Seasoning and a sweet cider vinaigrette. It goes very well with the Southwest Wonton Chips or even baked tortilla chips, like tortilla scoops. In the meantime, there's a recipe for Guacamole in a previous post below. That was a big hit at a friend's birthday party a few weeks ago -- also goes very well with the Southwest Wonton Chips.

Please check back often for more recipe ideas and to see when where we'll be demonstrating next. We will try to get back to the O'Fallon Farmers and Artists Market within the next few weeks. We're looking at the first Saturday in August, but we'll try to squeeze in one more Saturday before then. We'll let you know as soon as we know and as usual, feel free to email me with any questions or comments: GarlicEarth@yahoo.com

Sat. 7/11: Italian Biscuits & Southwest Wonton Chips at O'Fallon Market

Hope you can stop by and see us at the O'Fallon Farmers' and Artists' Market this Saturday, 7/11 from 7 am - 11 am. We'll have our seasonings at Market Special prices and goodies to share, like the Italian Biscuits (picture below in previous blog entry) and our baked Southwest Wonton Chips.

The market is held at the River City Rascals Ballpark on T. R. Hughes Blvd. in O'Fallon, MO. Go north from Hwy. 70 on T.R. Hughes. We're in the parking lot by the white awnings at the ballpark.

Hope to see you there!

Almond and Flaxseed Meal in Eggplant Parm?

Absolutely. I tried it and it works well! A long time ago, I learned to bake the breaded eggplant slices instead of frying them in oil (that was a fatty mess!). You can also use slightly beaten egg white instead of a whole egg for breading. This time I actually used Eggbeaters. I have recently started replacing flour and breadcrumbs with almond meal and/or flaxseed meal. They are very nutritious with very low in carbohydrates. I used 1 tablespoon, or 3 teaspoons, of Garlic Earth Italian Garlic Seasoning in the breadcrumb mixture and a few shakes in the veggie/meat saute. You can find Almond Meal and Flaxseed Meal at your local large supermarket OR online for a bit cheaper.

When I served this dish to my neighbor (who has also been my guinea pig for my new recipes -- thank you, Shanna!) and my adorable niece, they really liked it.

My niece asked that I cut the eggplant sort of thin so that the dish didn't come out mushy -- I did this and she was right! There was more crispiness than mush. Yum!

So, the next time you make Eggplant Parmesan, try breading the slices with the following before baking them in your favorite sauce and cheese. My recipe also has a little wine -- Cabernet Sauvignon to be exact -- in the sauce, too! I could go on and on about my recipe, but I'll try to limit myself to the breading part for now.

For a 9 x 13" casserole dish, cut 1 - 2 eggplants into 18 slices (for 6 stacks of 3 slices -- layered with cheese, sauteed veggies, meat, etc.). The first step is to bread and bake the eggplant slices. Bread the 1/2-inch slices this way...

You will need:

1. To preheat oven to 375 degrees F;
1. About 1 cup of egg mixture (slightly beaten egg white, egg OR Eggbeaters).
2. 1/2 cup Italian Style Breadcrumbs, 1/2 cup Almond Meal, 1/8 cup Flaxseed Meal, 3 teaspoons Garlic Earth Italian Garlic Seasoning -- stir well;
3. 2 cookie sheets greased or sprayed with olive oil;
4. Dip eggplant slices into egg mixture, then into the breading mixture;
5. Place slices as you bread them onto greased cookie sheet. Bake for 15 minutes, flip slices, bake another 15 minutes.

The slices will be ready to layer into casserole dish. If you have any other questions about this recipe or any of my other ones, feel free to email me at GarlicEarth@yahoo.com.