Removing sticky residue from your roasting pans is a cinch with this housekeeping secret.

At first glance you might wonder if this is some sort of science project. But what it lacks in immediate familiarity, it makes up for in taste -- especially when you consider it's a simple combination of three of any cook's most important ingredients: garlic, olive oil and coarse salt.

For this head of perfectly roasted garlic, blogger The Brown Eyed Baker simply cut off enough of the bulb to expose the cloves, drizzled them with a tablespoon of olive oil and added a generous sprinkling of salt before covering it with aluminum foil and roasting the entire thing for 40 minutes at 375 degrees F.

Great for use in pasta and pizzas and slathered on bread, those who truly love garlic may have a hard time not eating this straight out of the oven. But whatever you do with those golden-brown cloves, don't forget to save the skins for broth!

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool to get a shot at having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.

Though Thanksgiving is yet over a month away, eager foodies have already started plotting the year's most indulgent feast. And for such mouthwatering inspiration, we thank our friends at norecipes.com for this Cinnamon Harissa Turkey recipe. Omitting gravy, Marc brined the turkey in water, brown sugar, cloves, salt and pepper before applying a rub with cinnamon, sumac, cumin, coriander and harissa to create a gloriously golden, moist and spicy-sweet bird.

Marc created an entire West Asian Thanksgiving meal last year, accompanying the heritage turkey with a Fiery Cinnamon Cranberry Sauce, Tahini Mashed Potatoes, Brussel Sprouts Caramelized with Pomegranate Molasses and more. And though we were wowed by his creativity, we wonder how far we'd be willing to stray from old family recipes.

Would you be open to shirking tradition and creating an exotic Thanksgiving meal this year? Tell us how much you're willing to deviate in the comments!

[Via norecipes.com]

Roasted broccoli with shrimp. Photo: Sarah LeTrent

Few of us want to make a complicated lasagna for solo dining -- by day six, you'll never want to see lasagna again! In this series, AOL Food staffer Sarah LeTrent taste-tests simple recipes suitable for a "table for one."

Grilling out defines summer, but after a busy weekday, few people feel like manning the grill or huddling over a hot grill pan. In this recipe, the oven does all the dirty work for you.

Enter this often overlooked and underrated method of cooking: roasting.

Try this method for broccoli and shrimp. Roasting caramelizes the natural sugars and brings out both ingredients' natural sweetness.

Oven-roasted fries. Photo: Gudlyf, Flickr.

And by "home" fries, we don't mean chunks of potatoes fried in butter on the stove top (though those do sound delicious). No, we mean slim, julienned slices of the root vegetable roasted in a home cook's oven.

These slivers of salty heaven are from Flickr user Gudlyf, who used three large Yukon Gold potatoes, sliced with a mandoline, tossed in olive oil and sprinkled with the simple but always satisfying combination of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. And, wrote Gudly, they are "as crunchy -- sometimes crunchier -- than the deep-fried versions at your local watering hole."

Pass a bit of ketchup and we would gladly trade a serving of soggy restaurant fries for this tray of golden goodness, stretching as far as the eye can see.

[Via Flickr]

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool to get a shot at having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.

Photo: Dewet/flickr

In this weekly series, home cook Bruce Watson works his way through a decades-old family cookbook, adapting the best recipes exclusively for Slashfood.

Going through my old family cookbook, I came across my Aunt Renie's recipe for blue cheese meatloaf. Like many of Renie's recipes, this one has a long pedigree and an old school gourmet touch. However, the original had a heavy touch of sage, which made the loaf fairly bland.

Experimenting with various sauces in my kitchen, I found that the meatloaf tasted amazing when served with a hearty dollop of barbecue sauce. My modified version, featured below, integrates the barbecue sauce into the meatloaf, along with a huge amount of blue cheese. This, combined with a shorter cooking time, yields a finished product that narrows the distance between meatloaf and paté. With that in mind, you might consider serving this dish with sliced pickles, mustard or other paté accompaniments!

Get the recipe for barbecue blue cheese meatloaf after the jump!

One of the most delightful and plentiful coffee bean regions is Ethiopia, offering "percs" that include Yirgacheffe, Sidamo, Harrar and Limu. As a home coffee roaster, one of my greatest delights is pulling out some Harrar, letting the roasting smells infiltrate my apartment, and then partake in its smooth, rich and reliable flavor. And if you think it's just coffee snobbery, a report once stated that Harrar was "the single most requested coffee from our customers and partners" at Starbucks.

But the whole rich and diverse world of Ethiopian coffee might be in danger.

As The New York Times reports, the Ethiopian government has suspended the licenses of the largest coffee exporters, meaning that for the time being, no coffee is leaving Ethiopia. But there's a little more to it. See, the government thinks that exporters are keeping coffee off the market to get the prices to rise. So, to make sure all beans get an adequate price, the government mandated that growers sell their crops through the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange.

While great in theory, it has one big flaw -- roasters outside of Ethiopia wouldn't be able to buy beans from a specific, beloved farmer. The prevalent fear: This means the end of location-specific Ethiopian purchases -- so buying Yirgacheffe coffee wouldn't be the bean we've come to know, but rather a sort of all-round brand.

The ordeal is still playing out, but popular stores like The Green Beanery are already selling out some Ethiopian brands, so if you have a deep love for a specific, tasty region, you might want to to pick up some extra.

Let me first say that I am not proud. I am not proud of having bought a bag of pre-cut broccoli and cauliflower florets in the first place. Broccoli and cauliflower are ridiculously easy to slice up, so I realize that the slight convenience is hardly worth the markup. Next, I'm not proud of waiting until brown spots had appeared on the veggies to cook them up. But I was hungry, so I pared those brown parts right off and quickly disposed of the evidence.

Then it was time to cook, and things were looking up. I decided to douse them with spices and roast them until they were, well, browned again, but in a good way this time. When I shook them around the pan halfway through, I was sure I'd overdone the spices. But once they were finished cooking, the spices had formed a savory partial crust over the florets, making for a splendid side. Redemption was mine.

Here's the method:

3 cups broccoli and cauliflower florets
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander

Preheat oven to 425º. In a bowl, toss veggie florets with remaining ingredients. Spread in a single layer on a sheet pan and roast, stirring halfway through the cooking, about 20 minutes or until veggies have begun to brown and spices form a crust.

A few responses to my post yesterday anticipated the spirit of my second resolution, to perfect that classic of classics, Roast Chicken. My fellow slashfoodie Kat Kinsman plans to master The Biscuit, while a reader named Michael has set his sights on Bouillabaisse. Both worthy goals.

Roast chicken has always flummoxed me. Various recipes pull me in every direction. Do I butter? Rub with some kind of spice concoction? Do I truss? What about basting? Chicken stock at the bottom of the pan, or poured over the bird, or none at all? What, if anything, ought I stuff into the cavity? At what temperature shall I roast it? Pan sauce? Au jus? Somehow, my Thanksgiving turkey has always turned out quite nicely no matter which way I go, but I've never roasted a chicken--never--that I've been terribly proud of.

Am I cursed? This year, I will find out. I plan to try every variation and, perhaps more importantly, take notes. Periodically throughout the year, I'll share those notes, and accompanying photos, so we can all roast chickens to crispy golden tender moist perfection. Then again, you probably already do that, so please don't hesitate to share your tips. I might try your method first! Oh, and to keep the experiment semi-constant, I plan to use high quality but readily available Bell and Evans chickens every time. I'd also welcome suggestions for creative uses for leftover roast chicken. Or, if chicken's not your thing, what will you perfect this year?

When I was growing up in Virginia, my babysitter often referred to my family as "the carpetbaggers." This wasn't all that surprising; my parents were from New England, and the folkways of rural Virginia were somewhat bizarre to them. Even so, they quickly adapted and even learned to embrace the culture of the area. Because of their zealous adoption of all things Virginia, many of our major holidays were celebrated with a huge, salty Virginia ham.

When I undertook the reverse migration from Virginia to New York, I worried that I would not be able to get hold of real Smithfield hams. Luckily, however, one of my local butchers carries them; it seems that they are a standard Italian dish on the feast day of Saint Nicholas. As the butcher rang up my sixteen pound chunk of pork, he and I had an interesting conversation about the art of cooking Virginia ham. Interestingly, many of his customers are actually scared of Smithfield ham.

In truth, this isn't really all that surprising. After all, Smithfield hams are exceedingly salty, very ugly, and take a long time to prepare. However, they are also amazingly delicious, and constitute one of the most truly American of dishes. Luckily, they are also fairly simple to cook, freeze beautifully, and pretty much all of the leftovers are delicious.

A few days ago, I documented my first visit to a Pollo Vivero, or live-kill poultry place. Well, having now had the joy of dressing and eating a freshly-killed turkey, I can absolutely state the following points:

Cutting off Heads Isn't That Hard: I thought that removing the bird's feet and head would be really difficult, but it was actually easy. I used a sturdy, German-style chef's knife, located the respective joints, and sliced away. While the legs came off in one piece (each), I had to take the neck off in two pieces. I used a paring knife and reached inside the carcass to cut it closer to the torso.

Live Turkeys Don't Look Quite the Same: My turkey's torso was longer and slightly sleeker than the Butterballs that I was used to. That having been said, it was still quite meaty, and the actual process of cooking it was very much the same (minus the pop-up timer, of course).

Live Turkeys Are Yummy: The turkey tasted more or less the same as a grocery store turkey. It was slightly more succulent, but I also chalk that up to the fact that I brined it.

Live Turkeys Dry Out Easily: Unlike store-bought turkeys, which soak in a broth solution until you unwrap them, live turkeys need to be protected from drying out. I wrapped mine in moist paper towels before brining it.

Turkey Heads Are Fun: Being somewhat perverse, I held on to the turkey head and feet so I could show them to select people. Two of my sisters got in a little bit of a tiff over who got to keep them (I'm not the only weirdo in my family), until my youngest sister claimed the artist card, stating that she wanted to draw the various parts.

I have decided that I'm definitely going to go with live poultry for Christmas. Does anybody have a good recipe for pheasant?

Turkey, the centerpiece of everyone's Thanksgiving meal, can be prepared a number of ways, but, ultimately we all want it to be tender and succulent with the meat practically falling off the bone. There are several ways to cook a moist juicy turkey.

When I look back at previous Thanksgiving turkeys with my family, I think about having to dip the meat in so much gravy because of it being too dry. Fortunately, there are tactics (delicious ingredients) that can prevent this from occurring. Below are 8 recipes to follow to cook your scrumptious festive bird this Thanksgiving:

1. Martha Stewart's roast turkey
2. Brined, herb roast turkey
3. Adobo tukey with red-chili gravy
   
4. Citrus marinated turkey
5. Chili-roasted turkey with chorizo-corn bread stuffing
   
6. Smoked turkey with barbecue gravy
7. Porcini mushroom turkey with mushroom gravy
8. Miso-rubbed turkey with turkey gravy

What are some of your favorite turkeys from previous Thanksgiving meals?

The centerpiece of every Thanksgiving table is a gargantuan roasted turkey, preferably glistening golden brown and smelling incredibly good. This site gives the basics for defrosting and roasting the bird, but I have a few touches that I personally enjoy.

Herbs: Slowly and gently, slide your fingers between the turkey breast and the skin. They should come apart fairly easily. When you have created a good-sized space, you can insert fresh thyme, rosemary, or (my preference) sage. Not only does it look really cool when you serve the bird, but the herbs add a little extra flavor to the breast. You can also, if you wish, sprinkle a little salt and pepper in there for flavor.

Salt and Pepper: When preparing the bird for the oven, mix a batch of kosher salt and pepper in a small ramekin. After rinsing out the cavity, rub in some of the mix. After brushing melted butter into the skin, rub the outside of the bird with the salt and pepper mix.

Fatback: Buy a slab of fatback or salt pork and cut off four 1/4" thick slices. Before roasting the turkey, tuck one behind each wing and each drumstick. This will lend a nice smoky flavor to the bird and will also help keep it juicy. You can use the rest to make southern-style string beans.

Roasting Bag: Reynolds' plastic cooking bags make roasting a turkey much, much easier; for that matter, they also help keep it moist.

Stuffing: Over the past few years, stuffing the turkey has gone out of vogue. Personally, I still believe that a flavorful stuffing can create an exchange of flavors that is amazing. Unfortunately, Pepperidge Farm bread crumb stuffing, which my mother always used as a base, and which I used until a few years ago, has started adding high fructose corn syrup. This year, I'll be looking for a fresh recipe; right now, I'm leaning toward modifying this one from Alton Brown.

The Wishbone: If you want to break the wishbone on Thanksgiving day, pull it out while carving the turkey. Boil it for a half hour or so, then hang it on a cabinet handle to dry. If you boil it sufficiently, it should release a lot of its oils and harden up pretty nicely. Of course, the best method is to let it dry out for a few days, but I always have a hard time waiting!

While I tend to be a big fan of experimentation, I'd have to argue that Thanksgiving dinner is one of the few places where one should try to be traditional. With this in mind, I tend to stick to more mellow flavors and a Western European spice palette. Save the banana-bread stuffed turkey with cranberry lime glaze for Christmas; at Thanksgiving, stick to butter, salt, pepper, and sage!

Need to defrost a steak and keep it moist? Run it under water!

Growing up, the only form in which I saw cauliflower (or maybe just the only way my mom could get me to eat it!) was steamed and covered in nice thick, white sauce. Now, while I can admit that I still think it's delicious, I'd much rather prefer eating roasted cauliflower.

According to Gourmet Magazine, "Blasting cauliflower florets in a hot over concentrates their natural sweetness, turning them into something akin to vegetable candy."