Lots of garlic, borscht and brownies baked right in pot combine for tasty dinner

Here's a Halloween dinner idea for good goblins everywhere. The recipes are from "Kitchen Scraps: A Humorous Illustrated Cookbook" by Pierre A. Lamielle(Whitecap Books).

Vampire Slayer's Garlic-Laced Chicken

6 heads of roasted garlic (see note below on roasting)

2 free-range chicken breasts, skin on

Salt and pepper, to season chicken and for sauce

5 ml (1 tsp) vegetable oil

15 ml (1 tbsp) butter

1 shallot, minced

1 glass of white wine

125 ml ( 1/2 cup) heavy cream

Small handful of parsley, finely chopped

Sprig of tarragon, leaves only, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 200 C (400 F).

Roast garlic and set aside to cool.

Pat chicken dry with a paper towel and season to taste with salt and pepper. Set a large ovenproof frying pan over medium heat. When pan is hot, dribble in oil, place chicken breasts skin side down, and leave them to let the skin get golden and crispy, 8 to 10 minutes.

Flip chicken and immediately transfer pan to oven to roast for 10 to 15 minutes or until chicken in cooked through.

Prep remaining ingredients, which are for the sauce, including squeezing cloves of roasted garlic into a bowl and picking out the stray bits of papery garlic skin.

When chicken is done, remove pan from oven and transfer chicken to a plate to rest. Using an oven mitt, set pan back on the stove over high heat to start making the sauce. Add butter to the residual chicken fat and quickly sweat shallot until translucent.

Add white wine and cook until boozy smell evaporates. Add roasted garlic and roughly mash with a fork to incorporate it with sauce. Pour in heavy cream, along with juices from plate where the chicken is resting, and reduce to thicken sauce. Remove from heat, adjust flavour with salt and pepper to taste and finish by mixing in herbs right before you spoon it generously over the plated chicken.

Serve with big chunks of baguette to sop up the sloppy sauce or go with boiled potatoes.

Makes 2 servings.

To roast the garlic, preheat oven to 200 C (400 F). Trim off pointy tip of unpeeled garlic heads to expose cloves. Drizzle with oil, sprinkle with salt, wrap it in foil and toss it in the oven for 30 to 35 minutes. When cool, squeeze out the cloves.

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Babushka Grannies' Battle of the Borscht

12 slices bacon, chopped

1 red onion, roughly chopped

1 bottle dark beer

5 beets, peeled and cut into 1-cm ( 1/2-inch) dice

15 small new potatoes

1 red cabbage, cut into 2.5-cm (1-inch) chunks

1 l (4 cups) beef stock

1 small can (298 m/14 oz) diced tomatoes

Water, as needed

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

1 bunch fresh dill, roughly chopped

Salt and pepper, to taste

500 ml (2 cups) sour cream

Get the biggest pot you have, at least a 4-l (16-cup) capacity.

To render fat from bacon, place it in the cold pot with a good splash of cold water. Turn up the heat to medium-high. The water will start to draw out the bacon fat, and when the water evaporates the bacon will be crispy with the melted fat in the pot.

Remove bacon with a slotted spoon, and put it on some paper towel, reserving it as a garnish for later. Drain all but 30 ml (2 tbsp) of the fat into an old can, not down the drain.