A gathering of recipes

Apparently one of the requirements for having a "good" food blog is that you include pictures of your delicious looking food. While I have known this for awhile, frankly, I would rather eat my food than take a picture of it. I don't want to pull out my camera, take a picture, then take out my card, upload my photo, and then upload it to the blog. That is a lot of work, and that is probably the main reason I've never taken this blog to "the next level" as a food blog. It has been and remains a gathering of recipes, ideas, and a smattering of advice. I don't consider myself a foodie. I don't consider myself a chef. I consider myself a girl with a set of really good knives, really nice pots, and a yen for comfort food done right. Have you noticed that I have at least 5 macaroni and cheese recipes here?

This blog sprang from a simple wish - when I studied abroad in Italy, I wished I had brought my kitchen recipe binder with me. I could vaguely remember how to make some of my old favorites, but I couldn't remember the measurements or the exact steps. Then Mr. Barefoot moved out of College Park and I would find myself at his apartment for a weekend with none of my recipes with me, wanting to cook something. I posted a few recipes to my email or to Google Docs, and then, as I started getting better at the whole cooking thing, people started asking me for recipes. "Blogs" as they exist today were still pretty new (that is, a dedicated space to talk about a particular subject, instead of a general angsty online journal) - I had started one for a student group and liked it, but it hadn't yet occurred to me to start my own. It occurred to me one day that a blog would be the perfect place to publicly store all of my recipes and let other people access them.

It's been a little over two years, and this little humble blog of mine has grown from a 2-person readership to a whopping 12. (Question - are my 3 followers on Blogger included in the Google Reader feed stats? Cuz if they're not, it's 15.) Generally speaking, I don't think I have that much to share with the internet that I feel that trying to "grow" the blog is worth it. I am a passable cook, and my strengths are making interesting vegetarian meals that don't weird out omnivores, making cheap food, and making damn good macaroni and cheese.

Posting has been light lately because I have a new blog-baby, www.weddingfortwo.blogspot.com, a venture that I am extremely proud of and devote more of my blogging energy to, and mostly because cooking in the Barefoot household has been boring. It's been a lot of reruns. We've barely been menu planning, and we come home and stare at the kitchen and say "wth are we going to eat?" We even broke down one night recently and ordered takeout! I would like to make sure I'm posting more of my recipes here, so that I don't get caught saying "I made this great meal...I meant to post it but I didn't."

So in light of that, I'm going to set a tangible, realistic goal. I will post at least one recipe a week. And include a picture with said recipe. (I think that just keeping a webcam in the kitchen and hooking it up to my computer will eliminate my whinyness about how much work it is.) Sound like a plan? Feel free to suggest new recipes, btw - they just need to be fish or vegetarian, and not take 7 hours to cook.

Roasted garlic

Last night I roasted garlic for the first time. It was amazing. And easy. And took a long time. I'm going to give instructions without breaking them up, because they are easy and I'm feeling lazy.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take a small baking dish that is about an inch or two deep. I used a dish that is about 5 inches square and an inch and a half deep. Pour in 3/4 cup water and some vinegar (receipe recommended using white wine, I used white) - maybe a teaspoon. Take a clove of garlic, chop the top off with a really heavy knife in one fell swoop so the tips are exposed. Removed the losest layer of paper. Drizzle the top with olive oil and then cap with aluminum foil.

Bake for an hour.

There are a lot of purposes for roasted garlic. I used it for gourmet sandwiches and then I just ate it. I think I'll probably make a batch before big dinner parties and before thanksgiving, and just use it in everything.