Food Archives - Wholefully

How to Make Roasted Garlic

May 23, 20179

The tutorial was originally published in June 2012. It was rewritten and rephotographed with reader feedback in May 2017. Enjoy!

If you’ve never roasted a head of garlic, you are seriously missing out. It’s nothing like the spicy and aggressive (although totally delicious) flavor you get from raw garlic.

The end result of roasted garlic a mild, nutty, sweet, creamy paste that is excellent mixed in with pasta, mashed potatoes, and even just spread on a warm slice of crusty bread. One of my favorite meals is a head of roasted garlic, a baguette, a bunch of grapes, and a glass of wine. Yum! Let’s get to roasting.

Step 1: Pick the right garlic.

The key to good roasted garlic is picking a good head for roasting. You want to find a head that is relatively flat on the bottom so it sits level while roasting.
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Cast Iron 101: How to Use, Clean, and Love Your Cast Iron Cookware

January 31, 2017260

I’m in a committed relationship with my cast iron skillet. We’ve been together longer than my husband and I have. My skillet never lets me down, is incredibly versatile, and will grow old with me if I take care of her (not dissimilar from my husband). If you told me today that I could only have one item in my kitchen to cook with for the rest of my life, it would be my 10-inch cast iron skillet.

I haven’t been shy about my love of cast iron, and every time I write about my cast iron cookware, I get lots of requests for a primer on how to cook with cast iron. People are scared of it! And I’m here today to tell you that the water is fine. Come on in and fall in love with cast iron cookware.

I think folks are intimidated by cooking with cast iron because they believe there are so many “rules” that you have to follow to keep from ruining your skillet. THIS IS COMPLETELY FALSE. There are things that you should avoid doing to keep your skillet in top shape, but the glorious thing about cast iron cookware is that it can come back from almost anything. Literally, people have found rusted cast iron skillets in landfills before, sandblasted them clean (seriously), seasoned them, and happily used them to make their eggs the next morning. You are not going to ruin your skillet. I promise.

Anywho, I’m here to make you feel comfortable with cast iron. We’re going to cover both unenameled (the regular black skillets you are used to) and enameled cast iron (like the fancy colorful Dutch ovens you see).

If you don’t have time to (or don’t want to) read 5,000 words about skillets, then here is the long and short of it:

Cooking with cast iron rocks because you (eventually) get a chemical-free, non-stick surface on a über versatile piece of cookware. You can do everything you want to do in your kitchen with one (maybe two) pieces of cast iron.
Cleaning cast iron cookware takes all of 30 seconds, and if you take care of it, cast iron never needs to be “seasoned,” and will last for generations.
Heirloom quality cast iron cookware isn’t expensive. You can start with the piece I recommend (a 10-inch skillet from Lodge) for less than $20 new—and much cheaper if you find it at an antique store or flea market—and it’ll be around longer than you will.

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How to Bulk Cook Quinoa and Freeze It For Easy Meals

January 24, 20179

How to Bulk Cook Quinoa and Freeze it For Later

This post is brought to you by a Wholefully partner

Guys, I am super pumped today to be partnering up with one of my favorite natural foods brands, Bob’s Red Mill, to bring you one of my favorite healthy meal prep tricks—cooking quinoa in bulk in the oven and then freezing it for super easy breezy meals later on.

I’ve been on the quinoa train for years now because I love that it’s a plant-based source of complete protein, super easy to cook, and delicious enough that it doesn’t really need extra butter or salt or flavoring. If you follow a gluten-free diet, quinoa has got to be in your repertoire. It’s one of my favorite gluten-free grains! Quinoa is awesome as the base to grain bowls (like this one) or cold grain salads (like this one) or even casseroles (like this one). Quinoa, for the win!

Quinoa cooks up pretty quickly on the stove (about 15 minutes), but I’m all about saving minutes where I can, so, pretty frequently, I actually bulk cook quinoa and freeze it as part of my meal prep. The key to cooking quinoa in bulk? Do it in the oven!

It sounds weird, but it turns out perfect every. single. time. And the only limitations to how much you do at once are the size of your casserole dish and the size of your oven. I promise, oven quinoa is the fluffiest, softest quinoa you’ve ever made—and it’s almost entirely hands-off.

Then, once the quinoa is cool, you freeze it flat in zip-top freezer bags for easy meals. Let me show you exactly how to do it! I promise you’ll never go back to cooking quinoa the regular way after you try this.Read the post »

How to Make an Awesome Cheese Board in Minutes

November 17, 201619

Cheese boards are my JAM for holiday entertaining. They are delicious. They are impressive. And they are crazy easy to put together. I’m a big fan of dishes that have a high oooh-and-ahhh to elbow grease ratio. And cheese boards are the epitome of a great return on investment. They take just a few minutes to put together, and man, do they ever look sharp. So much so, that when you bring one out, more often than not, one of your guests will say, “Oh, you didn’t have to go to that much hassle for me!” To which you will then laugh and tell them it took you like three seconds to put together. Or you’ll let them continue to feel guilty. Depending on how much you like your houseguest.

Now, there are a lot of cheese board tutorials out there. So let me tell you why mine is different—it isn’t ridiculous. Some of the cheese boards you see that are making the rounds on Instagram have hundreds of dollars worth of ingredients put into them, tons of food styling time, and so many moving parts, it seems almost impossible to wrap your brain around. That isn’t my cheese board. I’m so not that kind of girl.

My basic principle when making a cheese board is to put piles of stuff I like on a board. Done. It really is that simple.

If you want a little more rigidity, try to make sure you have items in each of a few categories—cheese (duh), salty, sweet, cracker-y, and condiment/sauce-y. I’ll talk a little bit more about each of those categories in a sec, but when you’re gathering ingredients at the store, it’s good to think of filling up those flavor “buckets”.

Or don’t. Seriously, don’t overthink it if you don’t want to. I promise you can’t mess this up.

In fact, the messier, less organized, more rustic a cheese board is, the more beautiful I think it is. I don’t pre-slice my cheese, mostly because I’m lazy (I use these really affordable cheese knives instead). I don’t make perfectly organized rows—I’m a big fan of the pile method. Seriously, friends. Just put stuff you like on a board and serve it.

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How to Make Cold Brew Coffee at Home

August 29, 201621

I come from the Lorelai Gilmore school of coffee drinking. I like my coffee really strong, really dark, really often, and preferably served to me by a cute guy in a backward baseball cap and flannel. Unfortunately, my body doesn’t agree with my desperate desire to achieve Gilmore Girls’ levels of caffeine addiction.

I have to be very intentional with how I drink coffee. If I have any caffeine after noon, I can’t sleep a wink at night. And ever since I was pregnant, too many cups of the tar-like coffee I love gives me the worst heartburn ever. Lots of folks have suggested moving to a lighter roast (ha!) or even cutting out the coffee all together (HA!) to solve the heartburn issue, but I found an even better solution—cold brew!

If you’ve never made or had cold brew before (it’s everywhere now, I can’t imagine if you’re a coffee drinker you haven’t at least dipped your toes into the cold brew pool yet), it’s exactly what it sounds like—coffee that is brewed without heat. Coffee is steeped over a long period of time (12-48 hours) with cold/room temperature water. What’s the advantage of doing it this way? Well, the big one for me and my esophagus is that it lowers the acidity of coffee without sacrificing flavor or boldness. So I still get my pitch black, rich cup of coffee, but with about 60% less acid than a “regular” hot brewed cup of coffee.

That reduction in acid also changes the flavor—there isn’t a single hint of bitterness or that burnt flavor that you sometimes get when coffee is brewed with too hot water (if you’ve ever thought your cup of coffee tasted like old cigarette smoke—that’s probably because the water used to brew it was too hot). Cold brew coffee is smooooooooooooooooooth.

Unlike iced coffee, cold brew isn’t watered down or weak—in fact, when I make my cold brew (and most other folks do this, too), I make a cold brew concentrate that can be “watered” down using water, milk, or cream to make your perfect cup of coffee. Even this dark coffee loving girl couldn’t stomach drinking a full-leaded cup of my cold brew. But it works for me, because I like cream in my coffee, and this way, I can add cream without losing any of that amazing coffee flavor. Friends don’t let friends drink watered down coffee, and you’re my friend. SO I WON’T LET YOU.

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How to Freeze Basil

August 26, 20167

Guys. My garden is like 97.5% weeds and 2% basil plants (the remaining half a percent is reserved for the three hops plants that we have growing). My heart just wasn’t in the garden this year, but that didn’t stop my basil plants from having a very successful growing season. They rocked it even through the weeks of neglect. Slay basil, slaaayyyyyyy.

There are some herbs that I think are pretty decent when dried (what’s up, sage), but others like basil, parsley and cilantro, just aren’t even worth it to use dried, in my opinion. That is why I try to make sure to freeze up the fresh herbs when they are coming off in the summer for use all winter long. Making minestrone? Toss a couple of cubes of frozen basil in, and BAM, it tastes like August. Same goes for marinara sauce. Having frozen cubes of basil is like a time machine to summer.

A lot of people freeze basil in pesto form, and that’s totally fine, but I like the simplicity and flexibility of just freezing basil solo. It’s a breeze to do, and you can do as much or as little as you want at a time. Basil plants grow better when you’re constantly picking from them—so every few weeks, do a heavy harvest, freeze the bounty, and then repeat until your freezer is stocked with fresh-frozen herbs. Let me show you how easy it is to fill your freezer.

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How to Throw a Waffle Party

August 25, 20163

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Van’s Foods

I have a lot of talents, but throwing parties is not one of them. With my art background and my penchant for good cooking, you’d think I’d be a natural hostess, but it just doesn’t come easily to me. I stress too much, I worry too much, and I end up not enjoying a single second of an event that’s supposed to be fun.

So when I do decide to put myself out there and host folks, I try to make the party prep as easy and straight-forward as possible. I do not throw Pinterest-perfect parties with favors that I crafted for weeks ahead of time and gourmet food and hand-lettered invitations (not that there is anything wrong with that if it makes you happy!). My parties are simple, low on the prep time, and (I think) still totally enjoyable for my guests. And, I get to actually, you know, have fun myself!

One of my favorite tricks for a good and easy party is to let the food be the entertainment. What does that mean? Well, instead of the throwing out a bag of chips and some dip as an afterthought, use the food as the center of attention. Not only is it always a crowd-pleaser (everyone loves food!) but it also plays to my talent in the kitchen. Light a campfire and roast hotdogs and have s’mores. Set up a taco bar with all the taco fixin’s a person could dream of. Or throw a waffle party! It’s easy, it’s delicious, and everyone has a blast.

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How to Pack an Awesome Picnic

July 13, 201647

This post is brought to you by a Wholefully sponsor.

We’ve lived in our house for almost four years now, and just a few weeks ago, we stumbled upon an amazing park right by our house. This might not sound like a big deal to city-slickers, but actual park-parks are few and far between in rural Indiana, so finding any park, let alone a great one only a few minutes from our door, is an awesome surprise.

One of my favorite parts of the park is that a nice river runs through the whole thing—it’s a really beautiful, very tranquil, and Juniper loves splashing and skipping rocks (well, trying to skip rocks—she’s still learning). We’ve gotten in the habit of packing a picnic and dining al fresco by the river before we head to the playground or splash in the water.

Packing a picnic makes a regular lunch feel fancy without spending a dime. It really is a great way to enjoy summer without dropping cash on concert tickets or theme park admission. You can still have fun this summer, even if your budget is tight!

I thought I’d pull together some of my favorite tips for picnic packing—your picnic doesn’t need to be fancy. The real star of the show is the novelty of dining outside! No need to stress about packing gourmet foods and high-quality linens.

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