G is for Garlic

I was ready for a relatively simple Pinterest challenge today for my A to Z post, especially after yesterday's stabbing incident, so when my friend Melissa suggested doing something with garlic, I went with it.

I have seen pins with recipes for roasting garlic whole, and even though I use a lot of garlic in my cooking, I'd not only never roasted garlic before, but I'd also never eaten it that way. Perfect for a challenge.

Here's the pin:

Found on barefeetinthekitchen.com


This was going to be an EASY one! Two ingredients (one of which I had to go buy, naturally, that being the garlic). I stopped at Panera for a baguette (or two), then ran by the Neighborhood Market and picked up three heads of garlic and two half gallons of ice cream, because it felt weird to just buy three heads of garlic. When I got home, while I looked over the recipe, I had a double dip French vanilla ice cream cone WITH SPRINKLES, since I have 2/3 of a large box of cones leftover from the edible teacup fiasco. Then I took a nap. 

The recipe directions are so easy they are hardly to be considered a recipe. Cut off the top of the garlic head, exposing the inside of the cloves. Set it in a square of aluminum foil. Drizzle some olive oil over it, then bring the foil up around it and seal it. I did just that, times three, and put them in the oven at 400 degrees for about an hour. (It smelled absolutely divine while it was roasting.) When they were nearly done, I whipped up some easy and delicious marinara sauce, cooked some spaghetti, and sliced the bread. After the garlic had cooled a bit, it was time for the unveiling.

Cut the top off without mishap.

Olive oil drizzled on.

Sealed and ready for roasting.

Minor problem: the foil stuck to the garlic (or the garlic stuck to the foil) and roasted cloves were then attached to the foil, which I had to pry off with my fingers. To get the rest of the roasted garlic out, I was supposed to squeeze the entire garlic head. This is not pretty. And the papery covering, which is now roasted and quite brittle, kept flaking off and falling into the roasted garlic, and for some reason, it made me think of fish scales and grossed me out. No valid reason for any of it. After much squeezing, however, I freed as much roasted garlic as I could. And we spread it on slices of baguette.

Beautifully roasted.

The squeezing was slimy and gross. AND I have two
holes in my fingers from yesterday's skewer mishap.

And it was good, but I thought it needed salt. A sprinkle of pretzel salt later, and it was much tastier.

The Pinterest pin recipe said that roasting the garlic mellowed it, made it less pungent. "Less than" is a relative term, however, and I'm thinking that tomorrow's post may very well be entitled "H is for Halitosis."

Definite Pinterest win.