One of my many favorite produce items to “Buy local” is garlic. I even planted some in the garden last fall, and it came up like clockwork in the spring (anyone know how to tell when to harvest it?). Fresh garlic, straight from the soil, is so pungent and healing in its bite.
I was thinking about how much more garlic I go through than my recipes would indicate, and I wondered if anyone else cooks with garlic like I do:
- If a recipe calls for one clove, I use two.
- If a recipe calls for 2-3 cloves, I use five.
- If a recipe calls for garlic powder, I find a way to make it fresh.
- If a recipe calls for onions but not garlic…chances are good I’ll throw some garlic in, anyway!
- When making up my own recipes, pretty much anything with meat gets at least one clove of fresh, crushed garlic.
I wasn’t always this way. In fact, I never saw a clove of garlic until college. Read what happened the first time I tried to cook with fresh garlic…
I have a few favorite recipes that highlight garlic as well:
- Homemade Dressings: almost all of mine include at least a clove of fresh garlic. Since it’s not cooked, it gets stronger every day the dressing rests in the fridge. When I make a big batch of dressings, I go through almost an entire bulb of garlic in half an hour!
- Homemade Refried Beans: you can toss in a few extra cloves here with great results.
- Chickpea Wraps
- Jamaican Meat Marinade: a must-have for summer grilling, so many super foods in here.
- Turkey Chili-Topped Turkey Burgers: almost begs you to double the garlic.
- Garlic Soup: This delight will chase colds right out of you with 16 whopping cloves of garlic in a pot!
Why is my little obsession with garlic okay? Check out the health benefits of garlic, which include immunity boosting and heart disease fighting. That post also explains how best to prepare garlic and why you should crush yours 5-7 minutes before adding it to a dish.
Did you know I haven’t posted a new recipe is quite a while? The Cherry Almond Coconut Crepes were the most recent, and I had a terrible drought before that, too. A food blog should be ashamed of itself with no new recipes for weeks. Promise, next week I’ll share another recipe that has more than one clove of garlic in it: Mexican Black Bean Burgers.
What’s your favorite recipe spotlighting garlic? What’s one of your favorite foods to buy and use FRESH and LOCAL?
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Photo from funadium
One of my current favourite garlic dishes is baked butternut squash with garlic and parmesean – so garlicky and so good! As for fresh and local, my favourite has to be tomatoes. And of all the tomatoes we have grown the Mystery Keeper variety is one of my favourites because it means that we can have garden-fresh tasting tomatoes even in the middle of winter.
.-= Andi´s last blog ..Pineapple Cheese Cake =-.
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Heehee… I had also never seen a clove of garlic until college, and my mother never cooked with it (or garlic powder, I’m pretty sure). I make up for it now! I kind of assume that DH and I go around stinking of garlic all the time but that we just don’t notice anymore.
.-= Jessie´s last blog ..The Time of the Vacations =-.
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This fall I’m planting lots of garlic in my little garden – it drives me crazy that garlic in the stores, from Slovakia to Canada, is ALL from China. Oh, maybe I can get organic garlic from Spain or Argentina…but it grows beautifully here! Garlic smushed into olive oil and liberally brushed/sprinkled onto pizza…mmmmm.
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Ooh, Katie! You are a girl after my own heart! I LOVE garlic! I use it just about everywhere except for sweet stuff! I grate a little piece of raw garlic over my pizza! I double/triple any garlic that is in a recipe! I stud a roast with it! You name it, I use it.
Have you ever had Toum? It is a VERY garlicky sauce I serve with just barely cooked and cooled asparagus spears. Brings tears to your eyes, it is SO good!
.-= Cindy Young´s last blog ..The ongoing battle between good and evil =-.
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Your use of garlic sounds just like mine! I LOVE garlic!!! I’m so bummed because I made a pot of chicken broth yesterday, and realized after I strained it that I forgot to throw in a few cloves of garlic .
SUCH a bummer, and totally unacceptable! I’ll just have to make sure I throw extra in when I use the broth. 
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We LOVE garlic and eat a ton of it raw. We do not eat salads without raw garlic and when I cook anything garlicy I throw it in after I take it off the heat. It is much more nutritious raw. When he is sick my husband eats 5 or 6 cloves in a sitting mixed with raw honey or salsa to disguise it.
We planted over 80 garlic plants last fall and they are awesome. I finally finished using up the bags of garlic scapes we had. If yours are growing scapes be sure to snip them and eat them so the bulbs grow better. I believe they are ready to harvest when the tops die over.
.-= Shannon´s last blog ..What Real Food Bloggers Really Eat- Peggy of Local Nourishment =-.
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Katie Reply:
July 1st, 2010 at 1:38 am
Shannon, I saw scapes at our Farmer’s Market, but I missed them on my own plants. Are they the early leaves? My leaves are wide and thick, like daffodils almost. ??? I’m such a rookie!
Thanks – Katie
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carolinagirl Reply:
July 1st, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Here’s a good article on how and when to harvest garlic: http://www.garlicfarm.ca/garlic-harvesting-pospisil.htm.
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Garlic is glorious. Cut off the garlic scapes while still small and green and use them in dishes as you would use the bulbs. Cutting the scapes helps the bulbs to develop more and you get a early start on garlic eating. Harvest the bulbs when their tops have dried and died down. Here on the west coast of Canada I am usually harvesting garlic in early August.
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Garlis! That’s why my pizza last week tasted like it was missing something! Thanks for answering that riddle for me.
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I am glad to see when to harvest them as I planted some this year for the first time, really everything I planted is the first time…We use a lot of garlic here. My husband is from Mexico, so garlic is well used in our home.
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mmmm… garlic. Excuse me while I go cook something now.
.-= Robin´s last blog ..Food for Thought =-.
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Here’s a recipe of mine I thought I’d share with fellow garlic lovers. 3 different types of garlic doesn’t make it more intense in flavor…prepared differently yields different levels of sweetness and pungent flavor. Enjoy!
Triple Garlic Pasta
2 Globes of Garlic (full heads)
1 lb Whole Wheat Spaghetti Noodles
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
¾ C Dry White Wine
½ C Heavy Cream
½ cup Loosely Packed Italian Flat Leaf Parsley, chopped
1 tsp Red Pepper Flakes
Sea Salt & Fresh Cracked Black Pepper
Romano Cheese, for grating
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Slice tip off of Garlic Globe and drizzle with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle with some sea salt. Wrap garlic head in foil, or place in garlic roaster; roast until soft and golden, about 1 hour. Let cool, squeeze out cloves, using back of knife. Transfer to small bowl; set aside.
Cook pasta until al dente. Drain, and run under cold water to stop cooking. Set this aside too.
Divide the second Globe of Garlic into two parts. Thinly slice ¾ of the cloves of garlic. Finely chop remaining ¼ of cloves. Heat oil over medium heat in large skillet. Add sliced garlic; toast until lightly golden and crisp. Remove garlic with slotted spoon; set aside. Add chopped garlic; saute until translucent, about 1½ minutes. Add roasted garlic and white wine; let simmer about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the cream. Return to heat. Add pasta, parsley, red pepper, and salt and pepper to taste; toss. Serve sprinkled with toasted garlic slivers. Grate Romano over each serving.
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Jen Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
YUM!!! Thanks for sharing… I’m definitely making this recipe.
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I use garlic in nearly everything too. Spaghetti sauce, taco seasoning, whatever I can think of. Salad dressing, of course. That’s probably my favorite use, aside from salsa sometimes, because it’s raw. I like the health benefits of it raw.
I NEED a black bean recipe!! My son doesn’t do well with them but I love them.
.-= Kate´s last blog ..Early Signs of Bad Health =-.
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I too am a fan of the stinking rose.
I make garlic scape pesto, pickled/fermented garlic (which I put on everything from eggs to pasta to salad), and my annually-made Natural Antibiotic (a.k.a. Missionary Medicine or Fire Water) includes a ton of it. Here’s the recipe:
http://thechroniclesofsunukjia.blogspot.com/2008/12/missionary-medicine.html
Enjoy!
=), melanie
.-= melanie´s last blog ..Strawberry Picking =-.
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I, too, plant garlic every year. So EASY! Harvest it went it is 1/3 brown, usually July in my area. If you harvest too early, it doesn’t taste as good as it can. If you harvest too late, the bulbs start to separate & don’t store as well (or as long). The scapes are delicious steamed, with a little butter. If you leave the scapes, you can plant them & use them as seed….I think you may have to wait 2 years; but check on that.
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I can’t think of anything that garlic doesn’t make better!!! My favorite is roasted garlic. I separate the cloves and clip off the root end, then toss them with a bit of olive oil and salt and through them in a little tin foil pouch. Anytime I’m baking chicken or rice, I try to make up a pouch to roast along and then through what I don’t need in the freezer for another time. I found it less messy to do individual cloves rather than the whole head which seems unwieldy for me
.-= Michelle´s last blog ..Fried Rice =-.
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I cook with garlic like you do, it goes into almost everything and always more than the recipe calls for.
Have you tried scapes yet? Those are my new fave! I love buying them this time of year at the farmers market. They are the flowering end of the garlic stem and so they also taste like garlic, but also a little green onionish. Chop them up like scallions. Even better make garlic scape pesto!!! So yummy!
Favorit summer garlic recipe.
Honey Garlic Vinaigrette
1 cup olive oil
1/3 cup cider vinegar
4 Tablespoons honey
5 cloves garlic minced
1 Tablespoon dijon mustard
coarse ground pepper & sea salt to taste
1 Tablespoonfresh chopped parsly
(I add some scapes if I have any on hand as well).
Throw all ingredients into the food processor and mix until well blended.
My favorite summer salad dressing!
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yay! There are more crazy garlic lovers out there!! I actually discovered a couple years ago that my addiction to garlic was more need driven than just a love of the flavor. Garlic is what is helping me naturally control my blood clotting disorder. It is a natural anti-coagulant (blood thinner) and when i pulled off garlic to experiment with other flavors I ended up with a miscarriage after 2 normal, no problems pregnancies. I never knew I had the disorder before then, but garlic was saving my life and my babies lives! Since then, I’m back on the garlic wagon, and just loving it!!!!
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Garlic, and loads of it, goes into everything I make except desserts. I once had garlic ice cream, though, at a garlic fest. I just made refrigerator pickles for the first time and put in so much garlic the pickles stung! LOL but they were still yummy.
I definitely need to plant my own in the fall….
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I love garlic! To me, it goes great with anything. Salads, meat, sweet potatoes, dressings, eggs…
It is such a powerful cleanser too. I have yet to buy it at the farmers market but will have to look for some during my next visit!
.-= Primal Toad´s last blog ..Primal-Paleo Smoothie Recipes =-.
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We add fresh minced garlic to guacomole…and yes, we add it everywhere we can.
Jana
.-= jana @ the summer house´s last blog ..Caramelized Onions =-.
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Our CSA has been giving us garlic scapes: the stalks of the garlic flowers. They slice like green onions and are very easy to use. And are very garlicky and good. I don’t know that they have all the same benefits as the bulbs, but I would imagine so.
.-= michiel´s last blog ..Kitchen Ministry =-.
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oh good! i’m not the only one who cooks with garlic like that
i’m always adding about 10 times as much garlic as the recipe calls for. it’s much better that way!
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Yes, we are garlic lovers too! so many benefits eating garlic. visiting my family in spain when I was 19, many many years ago, one of the snacks we had was nice slice of bread with roasted garlic rubbed on the bread with olive oil added on.
I heard something beneficial with regards to garlic from my online herbal class –4 glarlic cloves equals to one dose of antibiotics. there you go… God has given us everything we need in whole form. May we continue to bless Him and worship Him.
~Carmen
.-= Carmen´s last blog ..Cold Beet Salad =-.
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I buy garlic in the bags they sell at Costco–and use it up. And our favored seasoning that comes prepackaged is garlic pepper. I NEVER measure the garlic, but I always use more than called for. Last night, I made a spoon bread recipe from the crockpot365 blog, using 2 bulbs of garlic, each clove roasted whole in the spoon bread (which is mostly eggs), and even my 20 month-old and my 3 year-old ate their roasted garlics right up.
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I love garlic also. Any recipe that calls for onion I also add garlic to it. I have at times made vegetable or chicken soup and found myself without an onion in the house and just added tons of garlic to it instead of running out to the store.
My favorite recipe that I add garlic to is garlic potatoes. The family loves them. I also love making roasted garlic butter.
.-= Arlene Mobley´s last blog ..Watermelon Granita =-.
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I love garlic SO much!
I am like you though–every time I recipe with it I double check to make sure that it is X number of cloves and not X number of bulbs. Garlic press is one of the best kitchen investments I’ve ever made.
.-= Jessica´s last blog ..Trip To DC =-.
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Those are pretty much my rules for garlic, too. My husband is even worse. When he cooks I’ll taste the food and ask, “How much garlic did you put in?” And he’ll say, “I don’t know. Like eight or nine cloves?” Goodness!
.-= Starving Student Survivor´s last blog ..Living in a Throw-Away Culture =-.
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I usually put extra garlic in my recipes too (I did tonight
) but I am wondering if it has either lost it’s potency or that we have gotten used to it? I was/am reading this book written in the 1930′s, and it looks like Americans did not use garlic and she had a whole section on when to eat it so that you do not bother people with bad breath. Fun stuff, but now I wonder how much garlic has changed since the 1930′s.
.-= Kris´s last blog ..Chilled Avocado-Tomatillo Soup pp 25-26- A Diptych =-.
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the old timers used to tell me that garlic is like a baby…it takes 9 months to grow
and you plant it on the waning side of the full moon after Oct 15th. Mine should be ready to pick in two weeks 
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Sounds familiar! I’ve been growing garlic for about 15 years. Before that, I hardly used it at all except for a little garlic powder on garlic bread. As usual, I plant too much, so double, triple its use in everything. You can dig garlic when the leaves start to turn brown and the stalks start to bend. Don’t wait too long though! Of course, like potatoes, you can dig one or two when it’s immature if you just need a little. Set it a warm sunny place to dry and cure for a few weeks (not direct sun). If you want braids, do that before drying it.
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