Five Pounds of Garlic, Part I

Mmmm... delicious, savory vampire bane.

There it was, towering among a pile of whitewashed braids and heads of garlic at the sampling table at work. An industrial-sized bin. Five pounds of peeled garlic. Everyone else was, understandably, intimidated. They took a head or two. They grabbed a braid for their kitchens. Awash in greed and drunk on self-confidence, I snatched the bin and sped back to my desk to adore my precious bounty.

What does one do with five pounds of peeled garlic? Garlic heads keep longer. Garlic braids can be dried and hung as decoration. Preserved garlic will sit in your fridge for months. For someone who's been trained rigorously in the art of kitchen economy, five pounds of peeled garlic looms like a ticking bomb.

I had to meet a friend for a burger & beer dinner at her favorite dive bar, so the jug came along for the ride. Seeing it propped up on the bar, I finally fully realized the burden of bounty.

Five pounds of garlic.

Nobody at the bar would take any of it off my hands (chickens) and I realized that casual use would ony send me through slightly less than a head's worth every week. Upgrading my intake wasn't going to help my social life. My five-pound friend was threatening to ge before April, so I knew drastic measures were required.

I scrolled through my mental list of garlic-heavy recipes... 40-Clove Garlic Chicken might seem like a lot of garlic when you're doing the peeling prep work, but 40 cloves only actually amounts to about a half-pound.

That'd be 10 batches of 40-Clove Garlic Chicken and probable death threats from my roomie. Not acceptable. There's always garlic jelly and pickling, truly time-honored preservation methods, but I had my mind set on something fast and simple. Something I could do on a Saturday whilst painting the kitchen.

The shining answer to my windfall woes? A roasted garlic spread, of course!

Generously bathed in a blend of olive and canola oils, 2.5 pounds' worth of silky white cloves turned gloriously golden in my 375F oven. I pureed 'em with a bit of salt and pepper and packed the fragrantly sweet results in a quart container.

Ready to freeze, slather on flatbread or blend into recipes, this one delicious recipe got me half-way through the jug and bought me some serious fridge space.

(I'll let you know in Part II of this post what happens to the other 2.5 lbs.)