I mean HOLY freaking garlic.
On a recent foray to the Farmer's Market I managed to procure 20 or so heads of very fresh garlic for the bargain price of $6 bucks! What a score! It was my lucky day, because it turns out someone forgot to repackage the garlic into the proper sized bundles - oops.
The biggest problem was deciding what exactly to do with all of it? More specifically, what exactly to do with it when I have a husband who doesn't like garlic? Okay, 100 clove chicken would take care of it, but it's off the list and garlic studded pork roast is a big no-no around here too, so how about garlic confit?
Following the idea from this recipe I covered about 10 heads of garlic with olive oil, a few sprigs of thyme, a few bay leaves, peppercorns and salt and baked it in the oven for a couple of hours until it was a deep golden brown. The smell was amazing and as an added bonus it totally vampire proofed my house - for a few hours anyway.
When garlic is roasted, or confited it loses all of it's bite and is transformed into sweet mellow-i-ness with a buttery soft texture. The olive oil from this recipe is intensely flavored as well and is a great dipping oil. Use the garlic for garlic bread, pasta sauces or baked with a wheel of brie.
However you use it, just make sure you do so reasonably quickly, because garlic and oil can mean botulism. You know, that same wonder toxin that's been transformed into the anti-wrinkle wonder drug Botox? The up side to death by garlic - you'll be sporting the face of a 20 year old at the pearly gates. :)
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