Even though we knew we’d be spending the past weekend out of town, I was adamant about trying a new recipe for the week. We were staying with my sister-in-law after all, and I knew that she had a kitchen (a particularly roomy one at that, compared to our tiny space), so the show must go on!
Well…yeah. My SIL has a kitchen all right, and it’s got a fridge, stove/oven, toaster oven, and a microwave. She even had flatware and silverware. But that was about it. No roasting pans, cookie sheets, rolling pin, cutting board, ANYTHING. In other words, her kitchen was severely anemic, and while I’m sure I could have figured SOMETHING out that didn’t require us to buy new kitchen ware that would make what we had at home redundant, I didn’t want to get started on anything and have to pause mid-recipe because it called for something that I took for granted that she had.
So we decided to wait until we got back home, when we had little time and no energy to do it after all the driving and unpacking, and so I decided on something ridiculously simple just for the sake of saying that I had done anything at all.
And so, yeah. Roasted garlic. I cut the top off of a head of garlic, poured a little bit of olive oil on top, sprinkled it with salt and pepper, wrapped it in foil, and then stuck the packet in a 350 degree oven for 50 minutes.
The finished product was soft and tasted like, well, garlic. The book (Betty Crocker cookbook) had said that garlic develops a sweet flavor when roasted, but I didn’t notice anything like that. It just tasted like garlic. By itself it was unimpressive and kind of gross (I mean, it’s garlic! Not chocolate! Who just eats a clove of garlic? I’d much prefer a clove of chocolate!), but I bet it would be really yummy smooshed into something else, like butter for garlic butter (I don’t know if that’s how you make garlic butter, that’s just what came to mind).
I’ve got to think of something not quite so “meh” for this coming weekend’s recipe, preferably something that could be gifted to my mom. I’m open to suggestions!
Tags: betty crocker cookbook, cooking, garlic, inlaws, recipe of the week, vacation
She Has My Eyes 
May 6, 2010 at 11:16 pm |
I have a method that yields easier garlic extraction:
I take a garlic baker (but any small baking bowl will do) fill it with three heads worth of PEELED garlic cloves, submerge them in olive oil, add seasoning (usually just 1-3 dried hot peppers) and bake at 325 for 30-45 minutes. Pour the olive oil and garlic through a sieve into a glass jar. Save the oil for use in cooking and salad dressing later, and put the garlic cloves on a plate and enjoy:)