My favorite compound butter and oil

Hello everyone!! In honor of the inaugural Spotlight's On! ingredient, garlic, I want to share with you my favorite compound butter and flavored oil recipes. These items can be used in a variety of different ways, and just add a little something special to the dishes you use them in. For the compound butter, I love to smooth it onto a freshly toasted piece of bread for a snack, or to top a steak; as it melts, it gives a wonderful flavor that is better than plain butter. I mainly use the oil to make scrambled eggs; although most people I know use onions, cheese and other ingredients to flavor their eggs, I find that the oil, salt and pepper seasons the eggs plenty. Both of these recipes, however, require roasted garlic - I will share the recipe for this first.
Easy Roasted Garlic

One head of garlic
1/4 cup of good olive oil
Heavy pinch of salt

1.) Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil; preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

2.) Remove the top of the garlic and place it on the baking sheet; you can also break the cloves apart and put them on the baking sheet if you'd like for them to cook faster.

3.) Sprinkle the olive oil onto the garlic; season with salt and bake for (cloves) or (whole head). Bake for 20-25 minutes. Allow to cool, then use or store in the refrigerator with a little more oil.

Once you've taken the garlic out of the oven and allowed it to cool, you can use it as you see fit. Roasting softens the garlic's texture and allows for it to carmelize; honestly, you could spread it onto bread by itself and it would be delicious. However, let's just make it a little more interesting:

My Favorite Compound Butter

4 tablespoons softened butter
2 cloves roasted garlic
1 teaspoon honey

Mix all the ingredients together with a fork in a small bowl. If you'd like, place in some plastic wrap, roll into a log and place in the refrigerator to harden. Otherwise, just place it in a small container and use as needed.

For the oil, there isn't really too much of a recipe: simply take a clean glass jar, and place two cloves of roasted garlic in it, along with 1/2 cup olive oil. As it sits, the garlic flavor diffuses into the oil and makes it taste even better than it normally does. Also, I've used raw garlic for this oil as well, and it also gives wonderful results - try both to see which works better for you!!

I hope that these recipes are helpful, and be on the lookout for more uses of the roasted garlic from the first recipe!! Love life, and eat well!