punk rock housewife

I tried to roast some garlic and it came out all ill.

Garlic is one of my favorite things on earth, but of course, I can’t cook. Normally I just chop some up, throw it in my rice or soup or stew beef, and don’t mind much when it comes out burninated or underdone. So when I read about “osso buco with mashed garlic bulb au gratin” or, more prosaically, Anthony Bourdain’s exhortations about how dead simple it is to roast the hell out of some garlic, a deep guttural growl surfaces within me.

And then, one day, I try it.

That’s my mise, if you will. Notice the handy location of my off-brand-vodka-and-Dole-Blueberry-Pomegranate-juice-in-a-Looney-Tunes-glass. I followed this recipe, perhaps foolishly omitting the aluminum foil. I was really hungry, as I usually am when I decide to cook, and not paying attention. This is my fault.

Roasted Garlic Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2. Peel away the outer layers of the garlic bulb skin, leaving the skins of the individual cloves intact. Using a knife, cut off 1/4 to a 1/2 inch of the top of cloves, exposing the individual cloves of garlic.
3. Place the garlic heads in a baking pan; muffin pans work well for this purpose. Drizzle a couple teaspoons of olive oil over each head, using your fingers to make sure the garlic head is well coated. Cover with aluminum foil. Bake at 400°F for 30-35 minutes, or until the cloves feel soft when pressed.
4. Allow the garlic to cool enough so you can touch it without burning yourself. Use a small small knife cut the skin slightly around each clove. Use a cocktail fork or your fingers to pull or squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins.

I thought I was clever and used some cone cups (why does M even have these) to squeeze the whole bulb.

I threw this shit together with some steamed spinach and sauteed chicken breast and I have to say, the garlic sucked. The “creamy, fragrant” aroma I’d been promised tasted like nothing so much as stale tea leaves. My garlic looked fairly fresh, but I had removed some nasty-looking cloves from the head. Was this, the lacking tinfoil, or both my downfall? I may try this again if I ever get around to buying more garlic.

The chicken and spinach were good.