Time to Warm Up During Winter!

We also take a quick look at the role GARLIC plays in our diet—it might be better for you than you realize!

🍽️ Garlic Soup Recipe

🍽️ FLAVOR-PACKED Vegan Vegetable Stews!

Healthy News Doses

Should We Eat More Garlic?

It’s crazy when you realise how many benefits there are to eating garlic, especially in the raw form. 

Benefits such as;

• Reduced frequency of getting sick with a cold

• Reduced risk of lung, brain, and prostate cancer

• Lower levels of hip osteoarthritis

• Improved heart health 

• Lower cholesterol and blood pressure

Mentioning a study on lung cancer out of China published in the Cancer Prevention Research journal, the researchers concluded:

The article also highlighted a study performed on individuals with high blood pressure, where the consumption of garlic extract supplements over a four-month period assisted in lowering high blood cholesterol levels and blood pressure among study participants.

In light of this research, I dug into the memory banks and got inspired in the kitchen…Read on for your FREE, chef-tested GARLIC SOUP recipe!

Cooking Corner

Recipe for Garlic Soup!

World-famous chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten published a cooking memoir in 2019 entitled, “A Life in 12 Recipes.” It’s worth reading, if you like cooking memoirs.  

I remember being astounded by the simplicity of his recipe for “garlic soup”, which basically involved simmering garlic cloves in what I remember being chicken stock and thyme.

Some of the cooked garlic and broth were subsequently blended into a smooth puree, and then mixed back into the soup, a trend we explore further in the “Upgrade Your Plate” section of the newsletter below!

For this easy, two-serving recipe I cooked up today, three whole heads’ worth of garlic cloves are slowly cooked in seasoned vegetable stock. The contents are partially blended to thicken the final consistency of the soup before serving.

Try making this when you or a loved one (who really likes garlic!) is sick with a cold.

Ingredients: 

• 24 garlic cloves (from about 3 heads of garlic), peeled and left whole

• 3 or 4 cups vegetable stock

• 1 Tablespoon olive oil

• 1 sprig of fresh thyme

• 1 sprig of fresh rosemary

• Kosher salt & freshly-ground black pepper, to tastel

Instructions: 

• Add the whole garlic cloves to a soup cooking pot, along with the vegetable stock. 

• Bring the contents to a simmer over medium-high heat.

• Reduce the heat to medium-low, and continue to cook the soup for thirty minutes, or until the garlic cloves are partially soft.

• Add the fresh rosemary and thyme sprigs, and continue to cook the soup for an additional thirty minutes, or until the garlic cloves are very soft and can be cut easily with a spoon.

• Remove the rosemary and thyme sprigs, and proceed to blend half of the soup broth and whole garlic cloves using an immersion blender, until the mixture is smooth.

• Combine that blended garlic soup puree back in with the original soup.

• Taste, season with Kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper, and serve.

Gluten-Free Recipes for Baking in Winter Weather!

To make the most out of this winter weather, I find myself using my oven a lot more in my tiny kitchen.

In light of this, our team here at Bloom has created some incredible gluten-free cookbooks and Masterclass courses tailored for home cooks and bakers of varying experience levels.

Whether you are brand new to gluten-free baking, or you are a more experienced baker who is simply trying to experiment with some unique recipes and big flavors, you can access our cookbooks and content below:

Get your copy of the Gluten Free Cookbook here.

And join our Gluten-Free Sourdough Bread Masterclass here.

Pro Tip: After you’re done baking on a cold day, leave the oven door slightly ajar, and put some slippers and music on while you proceed to make some soup or vegetable stew—it’s so cozy.

More details on this idea provided below:

Upgrade Your Plate

…with FLAVOR-PACKED Vegan Vegetable Stews!

Growing up as a kid in Massachusetts, we ate a lot of stews and soups, especially in the winter months. 

My mother would make enough soup to feed the family for several days, using whatever vegetables happened to be in the fridge at the moment. It was often vegetarian, just because my family really loves vegetables.

If you are old-school New England, you let the soup or stew cool down in the snow outside after you’re done eating dinner. You leave the whole thing outside overnight, and reheat it the following day for lunch. 

You then proceed to repeat this process until you have run out of soup.

Years later, in Culinary School, I remember having a conversation with an incredibly talented Chef Instructor from France, whom the students refer to as Chef “X”.

He was discussing the ease with which you can create delicious soups and stews that utilize some pureed vegetables from the soup as the thickening agent, without any added corn starch, flour, butter, or heavy cream.

As a line cook working in a fine dining restaurant setting, this mindset in creating a dish is quite powerful, as you don’t need to adjust the recipe or plating methodology when serving clients who are gluten-free, vegetarian, or vegan. The dish works for almost everyone, served as it is.

And at home, soups like these are great because they are both easy to make and healthy for you.

To make your healthy vegetarian stews or soups, start by;

• Cooking up a mixture of onions, leeks, carrots, and celery in some olive oil over medium heat, until the vegetables are tender.

• Add some chopped garlic and about one quarter of a cup of white wine, and cook until the liquid has mostly reduced by about half.

• Add any additional desired vegetables, including starchy items like diced potatoes, and cover the contents with your vegetable stock.

• *You can use chicken or fish stock here if you are taking the dish in a different direction, just note that the more liquid stock you add, the thinner your final soup or stew will be.

• When the soup has finished cooking and all the vegetables are completely tender, take ¼ of the soup contents, and blend them together using an immersion blender.

• Mix that blended puree back in with the soup you cooked earlier, and stir to combine.

• Taste, and season with Kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper.

If desired (and I highly recommend!), stir in any chopped fresh herbs you have available, such as parsley, cilantro, chives, dill, tarragon, chervil, mint, etc., and serve.

Got a minute? Tell us what you WANT to see more of in 2024 by filling out this quick form.

Our ultimate goal here is to create content in this newsletter that is useful for you--If you try to make any of these recipes at home and have thoughts or questions about the process, feel free to send us a message, and I’ll do my best to get back to you as soon as I can.

And as always, feel free to send us your thoughts on additional topics that you might like to see covered in future newsletters.

Thanks again for taking the time out of your day to read through all of this—Creating, adjusting, and enjoying these recipes at home is arguably my favorite part of the week, and it’s an honor to share the recipes with this really fun group. 

Get excited for some bright, new, and flavorful recipes in next week’s newsletter!

Andy G

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