This may not come as a surprise to anyone, but did you know that you can make popcorn in a microwave? Yes, shocking, I know. But what I dislike about buying bags of prepared popcorn ready to go into the microwave is that they are mostly filled with unpronounceable substances that I would not put in my body given a choice. They are also a ridiculous amount of money for what you get. This afternoon, I went out and bought a bag of regular popcorn for almost nothing. I placed a handful of kernels into a brown paper bag, folded up the top and placed it in my microwave oven for about 2 1/2 minutes. 2 and 1/2 minutes later, I was enjoying a bowl of cheap as dirt popcorn seasoned with my favorite smoked salt. I’m not as surprised at how easy this is as much as I’m blown away by the idea that I hadn’t thought to try this long ago. I’m sure many of you reading this may already know how easy this is, but this was my mini epiphany. Now I can make popcorn flavored with just about anything I like and I don’t have to take out the pot and oil, or pay more than movie popcorn prices for a simple bag of microwaved popcorn. This is, by far, the simplest popcorn recipe I have ever come across and works incredibly well.

This surprisingly delicious soup may sound odd to westerners, but the combination of peanut butter, tomatoes, and spices is truly a marvel of gastronomic achievement. Peanut is a definite presence in the soup, but is not the dominant flavor, which may sound impossible, but hey, would I lie to you? This is probably my favorite soup of all time. You can easily make a vegetarian version by using vegetable stock and it will be just as good. It is also so easy to make I force my 6 year old to make it for me as punishment for her misdeeds. She misbehaves a lot.

Ingredients:
4 cups chicken stock
as much or as little cooked chicken meat, to your preference
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium sweet potato (or 1 15-ounce can of sweet potatoes, drained of syrup)
1 medium Granny Smith apple, chopped
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 15-ounce can of chopped tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp curry
1 tsp cinnamon
salt & pepper to taste

Additional Ingredients (they add a nice background, use at your leisure):
1 tsp fresh ginger
1 pinch cayenne pepper (if you like heat)

Directions:
1. Bring the stock to a boil and add the all the ingredients except the chicken meat and peanut butter.

2. Simmer for about 30 minutes, allowing the sweet potato to soften, and then slowly add the peanut butter a bit at a time so that it melts well and into the soup.

3. Puree the soup either with a hand blender, or by transferring the soup to a blender and processing it in batches.

4. Return the pureed soup to the pot, add the chicken, salt and pepper, and serve.

I prefer to make my own stock by putting a whole raw chicken or chicken pieces into a pot of water and boiling for an hour or so. You can then remove the meat and reserve it for later, and cook down the stock until you have about 4 cups. Also, this particular soup is very flexible. Change the amounts of different spices if you would like, I like a lot of cinnamon, which goes so well in this soup that it is astounding. The peanut butter is definitely present in this soup without it being cloying, though, but again, if you prefer more or less, experiment. I also tend to sprinkle a little crushed peanut onto the soup for a garnish when I’m taking a picture for this wildly popular blog, but don’t bother if I’m not serving to guests.

Roasted garlic is one of the easiest things to make and is not only great when included into other recipes, but it is magnificent on its own, squeezed out onto a crust of bread. Garlic is a lucky little bulb; like all nubs in the Allium family, it has a high concentration of both flavor and sugar. When roasted, the Maillard reaction changes those sugars into a garlic caramel, which coincidentally are two of my favorite flavors.

Roasted garlic bulbs make for a simple snack to have around, and while it may take some time to roast, it’s pretty much fire and forget as you pop them into the oven for a while, wait, and they are ready to eat. Roast, let them cool a bit, snip off the top and squeeze onto a toasted baguette and you have license to ignore the kids.

One tip, though. Most recipes you find suggest you cut off the top of the bulbs with the head intact and then roast. That’s fine if your goal is to peel the bulbs, but I find it much easier to pull the bulbs apart without cutting them, roast, and squeeze the garlic out. Peeling roasted garlic is a hassle I’ll leave to the celebrity chefs who dump that work on their assistants.

Ingredients:
1 head of garlic

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 F.

2. Pull the garlic bulbs apart from the head and place in a sheet of aluminum foil.

3. Fold up the foil to create a pouch, leaving some air space.

4. Place foil pouch in the oven for 45 minutes.

5. Let the garlic cool a bit before attacking it. Just snip the top off a bulb and squeeze out the sweet, garlicky goodness.