What's Baking? April: Garlic

This month's What's Baking theme is garlic! Check out the round up, posted by Nicole at Seven Ate Nine.

I had trouble deciding what to make! I didn't want to make garlic bread or garlic rolls or anything with yeast, I just wasn't in the mood, and I wanted to do something different. I couldn't think of anything! Then it was Sunday, and I wanted to make a big dinner Sunday so we could have leftovers for a couple days after, and pork roasts were on sale. I got a couple 2lb pork roasts, and search for some garlicky inspiration. Success!

However, the garlic-rubbed pork I made is really more roasted than baked, so I worried it wasn't quite right... so I made garlicky baked onion rings, which, despite being our very favorite side, I don't think I've ever blogged that recipe!

Garlic-rubbed Pork Roast
recipe from Epicurious

5 cloves of garlic, pressed
2t dried rosemary (or 4t fresh rosemary), minced/crushed
1t salt
1/2t freshly ground pepper
a 2lb pork roast

Press the garlic and mix with the rosemary, salt and pepper. Rub all over a pork roast. Place fat-side down in a roasting pan and bake at 400F for 30 minutes, then remove from oven, flip over, and bake until the internal temp reaches 150F (30 more minutes for me and my 1.90lb pork roast). Remove from oven and let rest 10 minutes, then pour juices in the pan over the pork, slice and serve.

This is so incredibly easy, but so flavorful! It's not too garlicky, and the rosemary and garlic is a great combination.

Garlicky Baked Onion Rings

3 Vidalia onions, cut in thick rings

The flour mixture:
2c flour
1t salt
1t Penzey's Granulated Roasted Garlic
1t Penzey's Northwoods Seasoning (or other tasty seasoning, Old Bay would be yummy)

The wet mixture:
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs, beaten

The breading mixture:
2c panko breadcrumbs
2T olive oil
1/2t granulated roasted garlic
1/2t Northwoods seasoning

Cut the onions in thick rings (I do 3-4 slices across the onion) and separate into individual rings. Mix the ingredients of the flour mixture in a ziptop bag, and throw the onion slices in, toss around to coat them.

Have a bowl of the wet mixture, and another bowl of the breading mixture. Take an onion ring from the flour bag, coat it in the wet mixture, let the excess egg/milk drip off and then coat in the breading mixture. Place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, and repeat for all the onion slices. (This is incredibly tedious). Bake at 400F for 20-25 minutes.

Serve hot/warm, either just as onion rings, or with ketchup, BBQ sauce, honey mustard, etc to dip in.

This should serve 4. We eat 2 onions's worth of onion rings for just the 2 of us, so it's kind of hard to say! This is Clint's favoritest side dish.

And then.... I'd left the roasted garlic jar on the counter, kind of where the cinnamon sugar jar lives.... so this morning, while juggling making breakfast and entertaining a toddler, I went to put cinnamon sugar on my toast, only I made a serious error. :-/ It wasn't horrible, but definitely very weird on raisin bread! And garlic and coffee isn't the best combination ever.

Maple roasted sweet potatoes

One night, I went into the kitchen to make dinner. I was planning to make simple baked sweet potatoes (which I love topped with ricotta, but this particular night they'd just be plain) and lo and behold, Claire Robinson was making a 5 ingredient fix of sweet potatoes. Perfect! She pureed hers, but I left mine in cubes. They were ridiculously good, each of us had 2 servings.

Maple Roasted Sweet Potatoes
adapted from Claire Robinson
Serves 4, unless you really love maple and sweet potatoes, then serves 2.

2 sweet potatoes/yams, peeled and diced (1/2inch cubes)
4T maple syrup, divided (3T and 1T)
3T olive oil
salt and pepper to season
1 large onion, cut into thin slices
1T butter

Toss the cubed sweet potatoes with 3T maple syrup, 2T olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Spread on a foil-lined (for easy clean-up) baking sheet and bake at 400F for about 45 minutes. Toss them gently around a bit every so often to keep them from sticking to the foil.

Meanwhile, place the remaining 1T olive oil and the butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the sliced onion and cook for a few minutes, until the onion begins to soften. Add the remaining 1T maple syrup to help speed up the caramelization and cook a few minutes more (about 10 min total).

Serve the sweet potatoes topped with the onions.

I think we may have found a new favorite method of preparing sweet potatoes.

Claire's way was to puree the sweet potatoes after they come out of the oven with half the onions, and then top with the remaining onions, but I like the roasty edges of the potato cubes. Plus I hate washing my food processor.