Our third recipe for April was Flax Rice Crackers. Now, we’re not going to lie, these are definitely a work in progress. We had eaten these delicious crackers at a party at our friend Barbra’s house, and although they were gluten-free and intended to give Melissa a cracker option, Corelyn and I ended up being the ones chowing down. We wanted to recreate them.

The ingredient list looked simple enough; rice, quinoa, flax seed, sesame seed…

We had a few people sample them when they were done, to pretty hilarious results.

“Um, they’re…OK,” Ellen said, nibbling on one.

“What is that? You want me to eat that?” Rebecca asked.

So they weren’t our best yet. It had to happen. Here’s how it went:

So we started with rice. We used two cups of brown rice. Then we added 1/4 cup of black sesame seeds (which we toasted quickly), and 1/4 cup of red quinoa (uncooked.) We also added 1/4 cup of flax seeds.

Delicious! Right?

We also added a 1/4 cup of hazelnuts.

Mix it all up. Yum, yum, yum. Add a little soy sauce, and some molasses. I believe we used about a tablespoon of each.

Then we put it on some parchment paper.

Then we rolled it up.

Delicious.

So at first we were going to cut it into discs so that we could make it into crackers. This proved hard, however, because it didn’t cut quite the way we wanted it to. So we rolled it up and decided to put it in the freezer.

So flash forward about 20 to 30 minutes. Corelyn carefully cut them up.

We baked them for about 20 minutes, then when they seemed somewhat crisp, we took them out.

The results? The crisps were not so crispy. They were a little crumbly, in fact.

We served them up with strawberries and cheese, and they were pretty good with cheese. But pretty much everything is good with cheese. And strawberries. So they weren’t very crispy. Which is exactly what we were looking for – crispy, delicious crisps.

What went wrong? We’ll have to head back to the kitchen to find out. The ingredients were almost identical. Maybe something with the way we baked (higher heat?) All we know is that they need some work. But it was a good first try.

Another one of our April recipes was to try our hand at crackers. We saw these: What? Are you serious?? and decided that we needed to make our own, stat.

First up, we wanted to use whole wheat flour because we’re nifty like that. We also wanted to try a few cheeses, and maybe add some rosemary?

We did need something to make the shapes, however. We searched high and low for some shape that would work, and the only thing we came across was a heart. It was the smallest cookie cutter we could find and believe me, we looked at every single one at Sur La Table, and that was all we could find. (And a hippo.) So that’s what we went with. We also got a pastry cutter for good measure.

First we measure our cheese. We had calculated we should use 8 ounces of each cheese. Do you know how much 8 ounces of cheese is? A lot. This many, in fact.

Here’s the 8 ounces of Parmesan cheese. Delicious.

Do you know how long grating cheese takes? Corelyn showed up 20 minutes into the grating process. That’s how long. It was intensive.

Ahh, cheese. In all it’s grated glory. Now, you might ask why I don’t/we don’t just buy it grated? Something about pre-grated cheese freaks me out. I had never bought it until after college, because my parents always had a block. Something about it seems more processed to me, whether or not that’s true (but I suspect it is.) Anyways, so I always go with a block, and grate myself. That’s my spiel about cheese.

To keep it consistent, and a little more scientific, I insisted that we also weighed our flour.

It ended up being 16 ounces of flour, or about this much. Just think that you need 2 parts flour to 3 parts cheese.

We also pulsed some dried rosemary because we decided that probably would make our crackers delicious (SPOILER: we were right.)

So we mixed it all together…and we forgot the salt. Don’t be like us: salt!! And add some milk, and some water (1/2 cup of each…)

You end up with a ball of dough. Delicious.

Begin to roll it out, pretty thin.

Then obviously you should start cutting out shapes.

Don’t worry. If you get to a point (like we did) where you just couldn’t cut any more hearts, then you can switch to the pastry cutter, and make wavy crackers!

Much faster. Ahh…

Woah, mama. This recipe made a lot of crackers…

Delicious. These were definitely a work in progress, but so good. Next time, I think we’ll use a little all-purpose flour, definitely salt them, and make sure the oven is hot enough. This time around the oven was taking F-O-R-E-V-E-R. I am going to say 400 degrees, about 15 minutes, but check ’em. You want to under bake a little because when they come out they’ll harden, science yadda yadda, and you don’t want them to break any teeth. Yield is about 2.5 quarts (we measured in ziploc bags…)

Hello all! As you know, Garlic, My Soul, has gone bi-coastal this past month, which obviously has led to ups, downs, and in-betweens. Because of the road trip and following separate, our April Cucina Fresca recipes were not posted. But I assure you they were made, and I’m here to tell you about them!

The Best Granola

Granola was what we made first. We headed to Trader Joe’s to get the appropriate items to make the granola, searching high and low for some kind of corn chip (frito-like chip) to add to the Granola.

“OH!” I screamed in the chip aisle, so loudly that the man next to me jumped. “Sorry, sorry. I just…the chips!” I said. Corelyn and I just laughed, which I am sure made us look crazier than we already did…

Then, as we checked out, the check-out man asked, “What are you doing with this?” as he bagged our groceries. Mango, peanuts, cranberries, sunflowers seeds…

“We’re making granola,” I said.

He then proceeded to pull EVERYTHING out of the bag and scrutinize the ingredients. Looking from the ingredients, to us, back to the ingredients, and to us again, he seemed perplexed.

“You know how there is always one thing in pre-mixed granola you don’t like?” I said. “Well…this one won’t have that thing! It’s only things you like! It’s for our cooking blog…” I said.

“OHHH,” he said, “Right on.” He then re-bagged the groceries, and let us go on our way.

The recipe we ended up with played off of a recipe I had made in the past from Real Simple. It’s just such an easy recipe that it was a good basis for us to use.

You start the same way:

A bunch of oats. 2 cups, to be exact.

Then you add to the mix flax seed (1/4 cup) and almonds (1/2 cup).

Then you add  1/4 teaspoon of salt, 1/4 cup of maple syrup…

…and a tablespoon of grapeseed oil (or whatever oil you have laying around, but maybe not olive because that might taste weird.)

Then you use your hands to mix it all together…

So now, you let that roast at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. While you’re doing that, go paint some chairs in the garage or repot your plants or do whatever moves you. Read a mag, sit back and watch the Office reruns, whatever.

After about 10-15 minutes, give it a good stir up.

Then, after 30, take it out and pour it into a bowl. Let it cool about ten minutes (and cut up about 1/3 cup of mango whilst waiting) and now here’s where it gets good:

Add the mango.

Add 1/4 cup sunflower seeds.

Add a cup of peanuts. You know you want to. We used salted ones.

Now add 1/2 cup raisins and 1/2 cup cranberries.

Now, if you want, you can add some chocolate to the mix. We added it to some of the granola, and it really was quite delicious.

And now, you have the best granola.

Hi y’all. Sorry that our posts have ceased. How’d the rest of the trip go, you wonder? Well, I’d be happy to tell you.

*********

So we woke up the next morning, ready to experience Memphis. Unfortunately, per usual, we only had a few hours before we really needed to be our way to Birmingham and eventually to Atlanta, so we did a quick walk of Beale Street and figured we’d get some breakfast.

And by breakfast, I mean barbeque. It was about 10:30 am. The streets were just starting to get crowded with people in town for the Blues Festival (another festival we happened upon by accident.) and we were hungry for some Memphis BBQ. We found a place that we could take BBQ to go, but they didn’t open until 11:00. “Head down to Blues Street Café,” the man told us at the take-out place. “They open at 10:30, and have barbeque.” As we walked to Blues Street, we heard other folks getting suggestions to restaurants with breakfast, bbq, or whatever their hearts desire. It was nice, this attitude of sending someone along to another local business, even though they themselves were a restaurant.

So we settled down, ordered coffee, and looked at the menu. Corelyn ordered tamales and chili, and I made the sacrifice and ordered half a rack of ribs. This food was so good, that as I write this I yearn for down home cookin’. We ate in about half a second, then savored our coffee, and pointed out things about the kitschy place we found ourselves in: the framed poster of Elvis, the working juke box, and the waitress’s hot pink jeans.

After bringing our bill, our waitress, asked us if we wanted more coffee, “No, we’ve gotta get going, but thanks,” we answered. “Do y’all want me to put some in to-go cups?” She replied. “YES” we both screamed. “Sorry, Yes. Please.” Coffee in hand, bill paid, we headed back down Beale Street to the car, hopped in and headed to the National Civil Rights Museum, which is compromised of the motel that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. The Lorraine Motel is preserved as it looked when Dr. King was shot, and was crowded by school children.

We didn’t have time to stop and go inside, much to our disappointment, but we were on a schedule. So we hopped back in the car and headed to Arkansas. And yes, we know that Arkansas is in no way on the path to Mississippi, Alabama, and finally Georgia. But we needed to step into Arkansas to help with my goal of visiting all 48 contiguous states. I have now, I am happy to report, been to all except Kentucky and North Carolina. Luckily, Cor’s mom lives in one, and the other is close enough that I know I’ll get there.

After Arkansas and the might of the Mississippi river, we got on the road to Birmingham, our next stop. The ride was relatively smooth through Mississippi and the beginning of Alabama, but as we neared Birmingham and Corelyn started looking up our path to the 16^th Street Church, our first civil rights stop in the small city, she knew we were in trouble. “It’s just a red line,” she said. “All the way into the city. Right after the highway ends.” We pondered the reasons for this, and concluded it must be some construction-inspired detour.

We, of course, were very wrong. The traffic was actually a result of the destructive tornadoes that had ripped through Alabama only a few days prior. As we neared some semblance of a city, I saw a tank. And some national guard. And some police. And a whole lot of people. And then, a whole lot of what used to be neighborhood. The devastation was unbelievable. The tornado had ripped houses, business, cars, up and whirled them around the sky before placing them on the ground who knows how far away from where they started.

This sobered us a bit, and was important to see, because although it was hard to see such horrible destruction, it reminds us that our problems, which often seem so large, important, and hard, are actually (mostly) a piece of cake. After that, we were sobered even more by driving through downtown Birmingham, where we saw the 16^th Street church where those little girls were killed in a bomb explosion so many years ago, and walked the freedom walk in the adjacent park, which told of the bravery of those young people who fought so hard for what should have already been theirs.

Birmingham was definitely one of the most educational places we went, and we were sad to leave, but we had to press on to make it to Atlanta at a reasonable hour. So we got back on the road, headed to Georgia. The second half of this drive, our second to last leg on the open road, went by quickly as we listened to our Georgia mixes, watched the sun set, and talked about how excited we were to get to family.

We arrived at Corelyn’s brother’s house around 9:00 pm, and were greeted by family and more barbeque – just the way we liked it.  I was introduced to Frito pie (I think that’s what it’s called, Laura?)We laughed and smiled and visited for a few hours, before heading back to our final hotel. The hotel, Corelyn’s brother told us, had just been redone, and he was sure was beautiful. Boy, was he right! We had an amazing view of the city, and obviously the first thing we did was shut off all the lights and take photographs of the skyline. After an hour or so of that, we explored our floor of the hotel before heading back to our room to settle in for the night.

The next day, we had breakfast with Corelyn’s sister,  brother-in-law, and lovely nieces. Then we headed to Corelyn’s brother’s, where we hung with her dad, step-mom, brother, sister-in-law, and of course, our favorite little boy, Corelyn’s first nephew! It was so fun to be around Corelyn’s family. We headed out to lunch for Mexican and had a wonderful time laughing and lounging on a fine Sunday afternoon outside.

After lunch we made our “good bye” rounds to Corelyn’s brother, then sister, and all their wonderful children. Then we got back in the car. One more stretch to be had. We were Knoxville bound. This part of the car ride brought us Dane Cook, and laughter, and a finally few hours together in the Fit. We arrived to Knoxville around 10, and everyone at Corelyn’s house helped to unload the boxes, bags, and miscellaneous items that had accumulated. Here, I got to meet Corelyn’s step-sister, too, which means now I have met everyone in her immediate family. What a thing to be able to brag about.

After the unload, we started untangling and unraveling all our items that had twisted together in our ten days. Collecting shirts here, CDs there, we managed to sort it out, and get my laundry in the washer. Then we made sure Corelyn and I had all the pictures, repacked my bags, and headed to sleep.

On our final morning, Corelyn gave me a tour of her city. I saw her old house, and her neighborhood, and her school. Then we headed to the first coffee place we found – a Starbucks! We found, about two buildings down, a Dunkin Donuts moments later, and pulled a U-turn to get bagels, a maple-frosted donut for me, and some coffees. The Starbucks was destined for the trash, never to be spoken (although to be written) about again.

Then Corelyn and I drove to the airport, where we were informed that my flight was delayed an hour, thank you very much. So we bought a USAToday and found a bench to plop down on and work on the crossword. After finishing it, we just people-watched until we figured I needed to head through the mini-line to my gate.

“I’m not going to watch you go through security,” Corelyn said. We laughed, although sad that she couldn’t come through security, follow me to the gate, and say goodbye there. That would allow us another 45 minutes. But alas, things are the way they are, and we parted ways. We both smiled, not crying, just happy that we had at least had such a great trip, knowing we’d see each other again, soon.

Our trip had come to an end. We had gone through mixes from several friends, had talked about nearly every topic, focusing mostly on civil rights, Native American displacement, food, and of course, historical landmarks. We had visited eight states (Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia) and been together, not more than 20 feet apart (which Corelyn pointed out in Atlanta) in ten days. We had gotten in no fights, had not encountered any car troubles, nor any reason to use the side of the road as a bathroom. It was the trip of a lifetime. It was everything we wanted it to be, more, as every road trip should be. What a grand beginning to our bi-coastal operation. Here’s to Garlic, My Soul, and our expanding empire.

We. Loved. New. Orleans. We plan to go back as soon as possible and spend more than 3 waking hours. Upon arriving in New Orleans at approximately 11 PM, we knew that the appropriate thing to do was to rally, freshen up, and head out to Bourbon street. But we were tired, and we agreed the night’s sleep was more important to us. That’s when one of us said the quote for which this post is named. So, we didn’t actually set eyes on the French Quarter until about 12 hours later.

The first order of business was to find ourselves some Creole food. I desperately wanted jambalaya, and Jennie had her eyes on the gumbo. We walked up Bourbon street, tempted by the bars and jazz clubs that were playing music and advertising drinks despite the fact that it was only 11 AM, but as usual decided to opt for food instead.

Back on Royal street, we found Pere Antoine and scored a seat by the window. We wanted all things on the menu, but finally settled on coffees (naturally), jambalaya, seafood gumbo, red beans and rice with boudin sausage, and a salad with popcorn fried crawfish. It was incredible, especially the jambalaya, let me tell you. We ate until we couldn’t anymore and returned to the streets of the French quarter to “ooh” and “ahh” at the architecture, music, people, and art. Before leaving, we remembered MMC’s recommendation of beignets and quickly tracked some down. They’re kind of a fried flat donut, served warm and covered in sugar. I ate mine in the street, letting the powdered sugar cover my person from head to toe.

Our last stop before leaving town was a public art project a few blocks East, where someone painted a chalkboard wall on one side of an abandoned building and provided the words “Before I die I want to…” for visitors to fill in their own message.

Back on the road by 2:00 PM, we headed North to Jackson, MS, not sure what we’d find there, but confident we’d enjoy ourselves. In the end we toured some older neighborhoods, snapping shots of Eudora Welty’s house, the childhood home of Kathryn Stockett author of “The Help”, some antebellum buildings, and other things that caught our eye. For dinner, we went a little fancier than our usual road trip fare and dined at Walker’s Drive In, a pretty swanky place that resides in an old drive in burger joint and which was once featured on Diners, Drive ins, and Dives on The Food Network.

As usual, we had about 3 hours of driving to do after dinner, and we rolled into Memphis around 11, just in time to crash!