Home Grown Garlic

So do you remember my posts about growing garlic? My friend Patty gave me lovely cloves, and I planted them in the fall of 2009, harvesting huge gorgeous garlic bulbs in June.  I finally cooked with them this week.

They stored really well in my makeshift basement cold cellar.  It looks as if my drying technique worked well, which is good news.  I pressed a clove to add it to a pot of tomato sauce I had bubbling on the stove.  The first thing I noticed was that the home grown garlic was just filled with juice - so juicy that it was dripping into the pot, filling the air with the pungent aroma of garlic. When I press store bought cloves, I never get juice - never!

Next, the flavor. It was subtle yet pungent, and just different from store bought garlic.  It's hard to explain, but it had multiple layers of flavor instead of just a bite of garlic.

And lastly...odor.  Let's be honest. We've all dealt with garlic breath!  The interesting thing about the home grown organic garlic was that it did not produce garlic breath.  At least not that I noticed, although given that we all ate the sauce, who knows? Perhaps we all stunk and nobody cared!

Garlic is a winner in my book. I did not plant any this year because of the abundance from the first year, but I will definitely grow it again.