What's on the table?

When my vegetable box arrived yesterday, I was excited to see more fresh garlic bulbs!  The first one appeared in last week's box.  Fresh garlic is beautifully white, with purple lines through the outer bulb.  Inside, the garlic cloves are creamy and strong; crushing them in the garlic press produces an intensely powerful mass of flavour. 

These garlic cloves went into the sauce for our enchiladas yesterday.  They were stirred into an organic pasta sauce for a "ready meal" on Sunday.  They were present in Saturday's chicken pot pie.  And there were one or two raw cloves mashed into last Thursday's mashed potatoes with onion.  So, yeah, we eat a lot of garlic.  That's a good thing!  Check this out...

Pharmacological Activity: The healing power of garlic is recognized through Chinese folk traditions dating back thousands of years. Garlic contains multiple compounds and antioxidants including organosulfur compounds (diallyl sulfides), which are believed to be responsible for most of the pharmacological and antimicrobial actions. Garlic is a proven broad-spectrum antibiotic that combats bacterial, intestinal parasites, and viruses. It can lower blood pressure and blood cholesterol, discourage dangerous blood clotting, lower chances of cancers (especially stomach cancer). Garlic is a good cold medicine, acts as a decongestant, expectorant, antispasmodic, and anti-inflammatory agent. It has antidiarrheal, estrogenic, and diuretic activity and appears to lift mood.
Eating Tips: High doses of raw garlic have caused gas, bloating, diarrhea and fever in some. To fight bacteria, raw garlic is better. However cooking does not diminish garlic's blood thinning and other cardioprotective capabilities, and in fact, may enhance them by releasing antithrombotic ajoene. As a cancer fighter, raw garlic may be better than cooked ones. Eat garlic both raw and cooked for all around insurance.


Because we're so used to eating it, we probably won't notice [but you might!] the strong essence we're breathing out!  If you want to eat more garlic but are afraid of having the breath to go with it, eat fresh parsley post-garlic consumption.  It apparently helps reduce the smell.


I like to drink Pukka's herbal Cleanse and Detox teas after a particularly garlicky meal, as I've found they help in the digestion of spicy foods.  Cleanse has predominantly nettle and fennel flavours, while Detox has aniseed, fennel, and licorice; it's my favourite at the moment.


In baking news, I found out that the sour cream coffeecake I've been making for over ten years in the assumption that it was my great-grandma's recipe, is not, in actual fact, that time-honoured recipe!  Instead, my recipe is a more healthy version made by Grandmother [daughter of the afore-mentioned great-grandma.]


I'm posting the unabridged version on my recipe page.  However, I'll just mention that I made one yesterday that had half a cup of cocoa in it.  Cinnamon cocoa crunch coffeecake.  Oh yes.