The Garlic of the Gods

I’ve been in this garlicy, bready kind of mood lately, have you noticed?

Nah, I bet you didn’t. But if you did, you’re probably wondering what I have up my sleeve next.

Go ahead, guess..

(If you guessed bread, I’ll give you another chance to guess garlic….)

Yes! Garlic! Good guess.

There has to be hundreds of things you can do with garlic, but today I’m just focusing on roasting it. If you’ve never roasted garlic before, first of all - it's easy, second - what is the matter with you?! You have no idea what you’re missing. Might as well be living under a rock! I have half a mind to go all Forrest Gump on you and start listing everything you can do with roasted garlic, but I can’t do that because I’ll run out of bandwidth!

Roasted Garlic:

                         1 cup ~ Garlic Cloves, peeled

                        ¼ cup ~ Extra Virgin Olive Oil

               good pinch ~ Salt and Pepper

Notes:

• There are a few ways this can be done. Wrapping with aluminum foil, roasting an entire head of garlic, etc… But here, I’m working with already peeled garlic cloves. It doesn’t matter how it’s done because in the end, roasted garlic is roasted garlic.
• If you don’t have an oven safe dish or anything else to use for it, you can use some trustworthy aluminum foil. By trustworthy, I mean some that isn’t flimsy and tears easily. And just close up the garlic and oil in the foil and seal it good, then put it on a sheet tray in the oven in case any mess occurs.
• The amount of Olive Oil you use will depend on what you're putting it in. You want enough oil so that the garlic is for the most part submerged. Which is why I would recommend a smaller dish to prepare this in. 
• If you want to roast more garlic then by all means, go nuts! If it takes longer than the time this takes just keep an eye on it until the garlic is brown.

This recipe is so easy, my brain is hurting from trying to figure out a clever fashion in which to begin to describe the ways that this is, in fact, the easiest recipe to successfully attempt in your kitchen:

• Preheat your oven to 350°. If you’d like, and what you’re using fits, you can go ahead and use your toaster oven if you want. That’s how I did mine here.

• Find a small dish that can go in the oven, even a sauté or sauce pan will do. If you don’t have anything small, use foil like I said in the notes. Put the garlic cloves in your dish and then pour in the oil and season with salt and pepper. Then cover tightly with aluminum foil and put it in the oven for 40-45 minutes. After about 40 minutes, check it. If the garlic is a bit brown and can be easily mashed then it’s done.

You can take the garlic out of the oil and do a number of things with it from mashing it and putting it in mashed potatoes or a spaghetti sauce, or even just eating it straight up like what happened to that poor clove on my fork.

When you roast garlic, it becomes sweet and very smooth, so eating it straight up will do nothing but make you want to eat the rest of them straight up.

You can also put it in room temperature butter and then freeze it to make a compound butter that would be perfect for steaks or vegetables or rubbing on your body. Or you can just put it straight on some crusty bread and be the happiest person on the block. The possibilities with roasted garlic are endless.

But the fun doesn’t stop at the garlic. See that oil you roasted it in? That is now garlic oil! Infused with all the flavor of the garlic, that oil went from great to downright amazing. Keep it in the fridge for a few days if you need to, never at room temperature, but it probably won’t last. It’s perfect to make garlic bread, vinaigrettes, or to just use for dipping.

Be careful keeping it though, if you scroll towards the end of this page you’ll see garlic and oil are not great bedfellows when it comes to storing.

And that’s that. Roasted garlic. Get to it, make it, and start your life anew.