#25 - STAPLE - Garlic Powder & Mother's Day

Hi, I’m Billy Buttery and this is Food Is Culture | A Podcast!

This is my first STAPLE episode, on these episodes I will talk about a staple in my pantry. Something I can’t live without and something that comes out often in my kitchen. And maybe a little history about it.

I’ve been toying with the idea for these Staple episodes for a while. In an earlier episode with Cici and last week with Sakura we talked about ethic pantry staples and how they can be used in so many dishes. I hope these episodes inspire you to reach to the back of your cupboards and explore new dishes to add in some unlikely spices and ingredients.

First I want to tell you a funny story about pantries… So I’ve never been the best speller. And sometimes I misspell and frankly hardly ever proofread. Much to the dismay of my Virgo besties… there’s a couple of you and love you guys but you must accept my Gemini ways. PS it’s my birthday month.

Back to the pantry story, I will start this story by saying I love a well stocked pantry and try and buy in bunch which lends itself to decanting items in glass jars.

So… We moved when my son was a toddler and at the time wasn’t the best sleeper, I was also newly pregnant and although exhausted wasn’t sleeping great myself. I’m usually a pretty good mover, and was in charge of packing up and labeling the boxes. Moving day was crazy and although I had thought I had labelled the boxes well I was asked a lot which boxes went where. At the end of the moving day my husband and the movers were having a laugh. So I sort of joined in and thanked them for a job well done… well they were all having a laugh at me. Because there had been a number of large heavy boxes label Panty Food and Panty - Fragile!

Oh well. Pantry or panty drawer. Both best left stocked.

Today’s Staple item is… Garlic Powder! No relation to panties! Ha!

I couldn’t find too much on the origins of garlic powder per say. Most searches resulted in the history of garlic. But to me they are two totally different ingredients.

I choose garlic powder for my first Staple ingredient because it is an all star in my kitchen.

Bolognese missing a little something? Garlic powder.

Pork Moo Shu missing some depth? Garlic powder.

Bean salad needs some pizzaz? Garlic powder. 

Guacamole a tad bland? Garlic powder.

What is Garlic powder? it is made from garlic that has been dehydrated and ground into a fine powder. You can get slight variations on this. I prefer garlic powder when it’s a tad granular. That way it doesn’t clump together and I find it disperses better in dishes. You can also get it in larger pieces. It’s available pre-roasted for a slightly different flavour. And I’ve also purchased garlic salt that is meant to be cooked as the garlic leans towards the raw flavour side.

Garlic itself has a prominent space in my kitchen and cooking but when I need that je ne sais quoi in a salad or to finish off a soup, sauce or stir fry - I am reaching for the garlic powder.

My husband loves to mix it into scrambled eggs.

There’s really no savoury dish where that garlic powder isn’t welcome.

9 times out of 10 when a recipe is missing something it is garlic powder for that umame deliciousness. And unlike raw garlic, you can toss it right in to finish off a dish.

Sitting here I don’t know if I can think of one of my rotation regular recipes that doesn’t have garlic powder in it… hence why this is the first staple episode.

Is there an ingredient you can’t live without? An ingredient that tends to make itself into every meal. Let me know! My email ([email protected]) is in the show notes and I will be adding recipes to my blog billybuttery.com
 

I mentioned earlier May is my birthday month, overall May is busy. This weekend is Mother’s Day, then it’s my husband’s birthday, followed by my birthday. And a bunch of birthdays in between. Actually I know 5 people that share my exact birthdate. Isn’t that wild? People just getting BIZ-AH Late August and September long weekend apparently.

Any big Mother’s Day plans? Depending on where in the world you are you may be celebrating or may have already celebrated. Cheers to mother’s and mother figures everywhere. My your day be beautiful, your morning cuppa enjoyed hot, and your heart full.

I will be celebrating with my children and husband. I have simple requests on Mother’s Day… to sleep in. And when I awake to be greeted with hot coffee, Lucky Charms and chocolate pancakes. Chocolate pancakes being a speciality of my husband’s.

Lucky Charms being my own guilty pleasure. I will probably have to fight off my kids for them to not eat all the marshmallows right from my bowl but that is motherhood.

I want to say something about restaurants on Mother’s Day… if a woman’s children are under the age of 10, ugh maybe 8 she does NOT want to go to eat with them at a restaurant on Mother’s Day. You may as well brunch her in the face. That is NOT relaxing. A busy crammed restaurant where everyone is a little dressed up and she’s probably in heels and worst yet it’s probably a buffet and the kids only want her to get up with them every 7 minutes to get more food. NO! Ugh STOP SUGGESTING THAT!

If you are listening to this post Mother’s Day please make a note for next year, and hopefully by then restaurants will be opened and Mother’s everywhere will have normalized spending the day however they see fit.

Anywho, that was fun. Catch you next week, super excited about next week’s guest, as always. We have a great chat and I can’t wait for you to listen.

And if you don’t have garlic powder in your cart at your next grocery shop, please toss it in and head over to my blog and to check out recipes. Ps garlic powder is probably made local to where you are. Shop local!

Chin chin!