A delicious way of killing your cold

Usually people catch a cold. But, no, not me. I have a cold. Be it summer, be it winter, I've almost always got a runny nose. So I especially should try and eat myself healthy.

On Tuesday I made another try. I found myself eating a whole head of garlic! Yes, a whole head!:) But before you judge me and run away, consider this - it was a delicious way of getting better!

Oven baked garlic, my friends, has a wonderful scent.

Oven baked garlic
(from "Küüslauguraamat", serves 4)

4 heads of garlic
olive oil
salt
(dried herbs to your liking)

1. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Without peeling them, cut the garlic heads into two and place on the baking sheet (the cut side up)
3. Drizzle the garlic with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Add any herbs you want.
4. Bake at 200C for 20 minutes

It's best to eat the garlic while it's still warm. This way the cloves are quite mushy and are easy to mash with a knife, but they get firmer as they cool. Just slip the cloves out of their peels and serve over crispy bread. Or go fancy and add them to a salad or serve beside a meat dish. I plan to make a cream cheese spread with them soon, I'm sure of that. So what your fingers get a bit oily - lick them clean! The oil's flavoured with the delicious deep flavour of the garlic. The taste is mainly 'roasted', but there's a 'healthy' moment in the mouth too. It's all mushy. It's good.

I'd already made the recipe when I discovered the event Think spice...garlic hosted by Sunita. What a timing! This is my contribution - as garlicky as it gets:)

And for breakfast? I'm craving oat flake scone.

Well, summer mornings cannot be escaped, so I'm returning to them once again. With the intention of throwing all bread out of the kitchen cupboard to eat scones every day. With some quality butter and slices of tomato or cucumber or cheese or lettuce... every day. I've fallen in love with this recipe, that uses my A-list ingredients curd cheese, oat flakes and barley flour. Fortunately there's a morning every day.

This recipe does allow variations. If you haven't got curd cheese, you might as well use thick sour cream or sour milk. Feel free to add herbs or spices - for example caraway seems like a good option.

Oat flake scone

200 g curd cheese
1 1/2 tbsp oil
1 1/2 dl oat flakes
1/2 dl barley flour
1/3 tsp salt
1 garlic clove, smashed
1/4 tsp soda

1. Mix together all the ingredients.
2. Spread the dough onto a baking tray that is greased or covered with parchment paper (better option) and form it so that it's about 1 1/2 cm thick.
3. Bake at 220C for about 30 minutes.
4. Serve warm.



The outside of the scone is crispy and golden brown, the inside is soft - the favour of curd cheese. One garlic clove gives quite much taste, but if you want it really garlicky, you may add another. The scone has the flavour of roasted oat flakes, barley flour gives an additional earthly flavour, again. Just get some good butter and it's actually all you need to enjoy the scone, but a ripe tomato or two are a healthy and welcomed bonus!

So is riding roller-blades instead of a bus, as I discovered yesternight.

A sauce to fight the flu

Will it help? Will it? Probably not, but it's worth trying anyway:)

I've been caught into tea mania. Tea here, tea there, tea in the morning, tea in candies, tea in the afternoon, tea with vegetables, tea in the evening, tea in sauces, tea at night, tea in cakes, tea in preserves, tea with meat, tea on my mind, tea in my dreams, tea bloody everywhere. There's tea in this sauce and it's hidden well.
But you will notice.


Yoghurt sauce with onion, garlic and black tea

80 g onion, chopped
20 g garlic, chopped
2 tsp butter
4 dl very strong black tea
1-2 tbsp sugar
salt
1-2 dl unflavoured yoghurt

1. Melt butter in a saucepan, throw in onion and garlic, cover and cook for about 10 minutes until onion has turned transparent.
2. Add sugar and tea. Let the whole thing boil lively until there's not much liquid left (For me this time was about 8 minutes).
3. Now puree everything you have in the saucepan and let it cool a bit.
4. Add yoghurt to taste and also a tiiiny pinch of salt.

The taste has a lot of onion. And quite much black tea, although it's difficult to recognise that taste for someone who would never consider that option in a sauce. It's weird that my mom quite liked it and she doesn't even like onions (okay, except for in minced meat sauce)!
I ate the sauce with some smoked mackerel, but I can only imagine how well it could go with pork. Or as a dip for fresh vegetables.

And yet I like my tea green.