Garlic and Chilli Intro

The Health Benefits In Food

There are a lot of health benefits in many of the foods we eat every day. Garlic and Chilli specifically have a lot of different benefits, which makes it important to incorporate into a daily diet for healthy living. They can help food taste better using a number of different recipes and they both date back many years in how they have helped people.

Both garlic and chilli dates back over 6000 years. Garlic was used throughout Europe and Asia while Chilli originated in the Americas, growing very popular in South America over the years. People have used both of these ingredients in medicine and in food because of the various things that they have helped alleviate or cure through the centuries.

Garlic and chilli can be used simultaneously in a number of recipes. They can be chopped up and placed into a stew or chilli, they can be sautéed together for a stir fry and they can even be ground up into a salsa to be enjoyed in various dishes or just with chips. The ingredients are very versatile, so it’s possible to eat both of them every day to gain all of the properties that they offer.

When you eat garlic and chilli, you will be able to enjoy a healthier lifestyle. Chilli peppers have helped to prevent sinusitis and relieve congestion because of the strength of the pepper. In addition, it can help migraine and sinus headaches. When the congestion is clear and people can breathe easily, it helps prevent a number of other issues as well.

Garlic and chilli both have the ability to help with the heart. The garlic helps with plaque buildup in the arteries while the chilli peppers help to protect the heart in many other ways. They both have properties that can help prevent cancer, too. Studies have shown that those who consume more garlic or more chili have a lower risk of cancer. Consuming the two together is even more power.

When you are trying to burn fat and deal with weight loss, garlic and chili pepper should also be used. The garlic will help with the cholesterol levels and help to keep the stomach acids working properly while the chilli can actually speed up the metabolism to help burn the fat in the body faster than without it.

There are countries all over the world that have used garlic and chilli for internal and external medicine as well as with cooking. Since they both taste great and have a number of healing properties, it makes sense to incorporate them into as many meals as possible. This way they will taste great and keep you healthy – what more could you ask for?

Saturday night dinner party

Every since me and Carola moved in together in November last year, we've only had a few people around for one evening for a house warming. The house warming was just me, Carola and about 6 others having plenty of beer and wine and a few snacks. There were 2 people (Reetta and Joe) who could not make it and they are the lucky ones to have a special invite to our house this Saturday night for a 3 course meal. I guess this is our first meal we will have cooked for guests since settling in. This is very exciting for us as we both used to live in small one room apartments with no room to have any guests round and make them feel comfortable. This is much nicer now as there is a spare bed for them to sleep in if needed and we have a dining table and many other luxuries that we did not have previously.  

So this is what we are serving up to our lucky guests and yes there will be a little garlic and chilli in some parts of the recipes:-

Appetizer

Lobster Cocktail - Fresh lobster mixed with raw salsa, avocado, shredded lettuce and a lightly spiced home made seafood sauce.

Main Course

Fillet Steak with Red Wine Jus - The very best cooked fillet steak with a generous drizzle of red wine reduction served with hasselback potatoes, creamy mixed organic mushrooms and steamed broccoli.

Dessert

Chocolate Brownie, Vanilla Ice-cream with Fresh Cherries - Chocolate Brownie served up with some quality vanilla ice-cream and fresh cherries.    

O.k let’s see how Saturday night goes. I will report back with the recipes and some photos and hopefully some good stories.

and out

Scot

Garlic, blood pressure and vampires

So if you are someone who believes in vampires then garlic will give you a bonus effect. It will apparently repel the vampire so he will go choose another victim for a feed. So make sure your house is well stocked up with garlic and wearing some on your person will help too. I’m not so sure about that, I would rather use it for the enjoyment of consumption and the health benefits. There have been many studies on various herbs, seeds, plants, bulbs and oils to check out their health benefits. Out of all the tests garlic scores very highly on a scientific evidence level as to how beneficial garlic is for blood pressure. See link for a systematic review and meta-analysis on effects of garlic on blood pressure (US national Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18554422

Also here is a lovely data chart on snake oil taken from the information is beautiful website, see how highly garlic scores on their findings. Also have a look at some of the other great displays of data on this site, very very interesting.

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/play/snake-oil-supplements/

Enjoy Garlic!!!

Garlic and Chilli prawns

This is a recipe from my other blog for a very delicious and fresh recipe using both garlic and chilli. It has a very clean and robust taste as the garlic and chilli is only briefly cooked. This combined with parsley, oil and lemon juice give it freshness and compliment the prawns perfectly. The oils take on the flavour of the prawn shells and makes a perfect flavoursome dipping sauce to mop up with some fresh bread. To be honest it is up to you how much garlic and chilli you use, I like it spicy so added 8 birds eye chilli's. Probably use half the amount of chilli for a medium spice heat. Enjoy!

Here is something very simple and very moreish. Make sure to use good quality prawns and serve with some very fresh crispy bread to soak up the the garlic and chilli oil. Preferably use fresh uncooked prawns in shells, they were out of stock at my supermarket so I had to get them ready cooked.

Serves 2 as starter

Equipment

• Frying pan
• Chopping board
• Sharp knife

Ingredients

• 8 Large fresh prawns

Prawns and Parsley

• 6 tbsp of olive oil
• 5 Garlic cloves diced
• 8 birds eye chillies finely sliced

Garlic and birds eye chillies

• A handful of fresh chopped parsley chopped
• Salt and pepper

Method

• Heat a frying pan to medium/hot heat.
• Add the oil
• Add the garlic and chilli and fry for 1 min
• Add the prawns and fry for 2 mins
• Turn over the prawns
• Add salt, pepper and half the parsley
• Let fry for 2 mins
• Stir and serve up
• Squeeze some lemon juice over and add rest of parsley

Garlic and Chilli Prawns

Garlic and Chilli Prawns Done!