Cooking Gold

A couple of weeks ago I bough a big bag of peeled garlic cloves at Costco for my Red Wine Vinegar Chicken. I needed half the bag for my red wine vinegar chicken so buying the garlic is such bulk shamed me a ton of time and money. Despite using three cups of garlic in one felled swoop I still had two more cups leftover.

Peeled garlic will last about a week, but after that it starts to break down. Not wanting to waste even one clove I went ahead and roasted all of it because that would preserve it longer and there are so many uses for roasted garlic.

Once roasted the garlic become spreadable so you can put it on toast, make bruschetta out of it, add it to your tuna salad, squish some on pizza, add it to your cooked vegetables, schmeer it on cooked fish, chicken, steak or pork, throw in lamb, ostrich, buffalo or any other protein you are cooking. Basically roasted garlic is like soft gold in your fridge.

Any amount of peeled whole garlic cloves

Enough olive oil to coat it

Place it all in a shallow oven proof dish. I used a glass pie plate. Cover with foil.

Put in a 250° oven for two- three hours. The garlic will still hold its shape but be totally soft to the touch.

Let it cool and store in an airtight container. Will keep in the fridge for a month, but won’t last that long once you taste it.