garlic

Dehydrated Garlic

Wow! It has been ages since I sat down to write something! I haven’t forgotten about it, as I have been taking pictures regularly and emailing them to myself so that I don’t forget! Or sometimes when I have a topic picked out, I realize I don’t have pictures! And what is the fun with no pictures? Personally, I find the pictures are the best part of reading a blog! So anyway, today I have a night home alone, now the children are in bed and I have time as well as energy to write!

Peeled and sliced, Notice the lines
in the one on the bottom left?

Today I am writing about dehydrating my own garlic spice, ever since we have started growing our own garlic I have been looking for new ways to process it, especially the small bulbs that we don’t want to sell, these small bulbs are always a ton of work! Anyway, there are some things that it is harder to use fresh garlic in, (meat balls, hamburger paddies, meat loaf, soups and sauces) so I still always bought garlic salt. Not anymore though! The first time I tasted my homemade stuff I decided I was never going to waste my money buying it again, homemade is sooo much stronger, and better tasting in general! You might ask if the variety of garlic makes a difference, I didn’t experiment with keeping the variety’s separate as I mostly am just trying to get rid of the small bulbs, as well as sometimes when we are harvesting a bulb gets sliced in half, but there are still a few good cloves on it, we had saved those as it just feels wrong throwing out a perfectly good garlic clove. Well I have found a few good uses for these and dehydrated garlic is one!

Ready to be baked! (excuse my dirty oven!)

  Given how much work it is, I am not sure if it is cost effective, but the fact that I am getting natural garlic, and knowing how it is grown and processed means a lot to me. We are hopping to get an automatic garlic peeler some day, I do get teased about being one, as one day the garlic is still in its papers, and the next day its pealed! Anyway it’s a lot of work to peel all the little cloves, I am thinking to try just chopping the garlic up next time and once it is dry the papers should just come loose, so I might be able to separate it by pouring it into a different container in the wind. Its totally worth a try as the peeling is by far the most work!

After pealing I slice each clove up as it just makes it dry faster, once it is in the dehydrator it doesn’t really matter how long it takes, but I find for the little extra work it takes to slice it I might as well save the energy, and I LOVE the smell of fresh sliced garlic! Yes I know I am crazy, but honestly the only time that I do not like the smell of garlic is when its on someone’s breath, and the only people I get close enough, to actually notice is my husband and children so normally the smell doesn’t bother me at all.

Dehydrated, blended, and in my jar!

Anyway back to the garlic. After it is sliced I pop it in the oven for about two hours at the lowest temp that my oven will go which is 170 Fahrenheit. This makes it dehydrate faster, also uncooked garlic is a lot stronger when cooked, as well as the smell stays on a persons breath a lot longer (hint* if garlic is cooked correctly you can rarely smell it on a persons breath, as well as the more you eat it the less likely a person will smell it) during the time that you are cooking it, your house will smell very strong, and not the fresh smell either, thankfully once you open the windows it goes away pretty fast. So once it is done cooking, I put it in my dehydrator, I cant tell you how hot I have it as I don’t know. My husband made me a huge dehydrator and we just have a little space heater in it, so I basically put it on full heat and full fan until it is done, which for me was two days. I just keep it drying until I cant squeeze or bend the biggest slices, and if I don’t have time to grind it I just keep it drying until I am ready. The last step is popping it into the blender! It makes a ton of noise so don’t do it when anyone is sleeping! I just put a little bit in at a time and then slowly added it as it was blending, otherwise it takes to long! I have a bunch of extra spice jars that I got from my sister in law and I just filled them all with garlic spice!

Though the peeling takes quite a bit of time, for the rest it is super simple! And I have nice healthy garlic salt!

Fermented Honey Garlic.

Peeling each individual piece is the most work!

I am so excited about my fermenting journey so far!! of course being that our family is so busy with garlic right now I had to try fermented garlic! after doing some searching I found a recipe that is right up my alley! my dad is a hobby bee farmer and some day I would like to have a bee hive of my own as well, so when I saw fermented honey garlic of course I had to try it!!! little did I know how much work it was going to be to peel the garlic! but so far it has been worth it!

Fermenting is actually super easy however, before I understood the process and how healthy it is for a person I would have thought leaving food on your kitchen counter and then eating it was like poisoning yourself! But when following the right protocol it changes from being bad for you to being super healthy!!! I imagine it as a probiotic super food! plus, honey is a super food as well as garlic, so I mean, what could go wrong, right?! So far nothing! when keeping the garlic whole it does take a bit longer for it to ferment. I haven’t tasted it yet, but it smells amazing, and the bit of honey that has bubbled over the side tastes awesome, it also looks super interesting and has turned into quite the conversation starter when people see it on my counter. So far the garlic is still floating in the honey and bubbles are still forming, both these things mean it is still actively fermenting. Around 5 weeks or when the garlic starts settling it has reached its ready to eat stage.

So know you are wondering how do I make the stuff? well, basically just peel garlic, add it to a jar until the jar is full, I shook mine down and added some smaller ones in between to get it as full as I could, then pour honey on top till it covers the garlic. Put the lid on quite lose so that it has room to bubble and store it on the shelf, 4-5 feet away from any other ferment you might have going on as you don’t want the ferments to blend, then let sit for 5 weeks or more. cloves can be eaten at anytime but to get a good ferment let sit for 4-6 weeks.

And one tip. Keep on a plate or in a bowl as it may leak! and honey is very sticky!

Another article I read advised to stir it once a day, however I did not do this as every other article I have read about fermenting advised against opening the lid of a ferment as you don’t want to introduce bad bacteria to it.

Almost ready to eat

One more thing, if it forms mold please through out and try again. Some people say just scoop the mold off, so its up to you, I feel mold should not be able to grow in a healthy environment so if mold is growing the whole thing is probably bad, and its better safe than sorry.

Garlic. Garlic, Garlic!

Ready to go! all 40 cloves

Ok so this last month has been so busy! Partly because the garden is coming out, fresh fruit is finally ripe, so tons of canning. As well as the garlic harvest is done, which means cleaning and selling it starts! as well as school starting! I feel like this house has been a buzz of activity and its finally starting to slow down! We still have a bunch of stuff in the garden that needs to come out, as well as now starts fall cleaning! but in general I don’t wake up with my brain whirring or go to bed going through the list of stuff that I didn’t get done! to top it all off the field next door got harvested and we had a mouse family migrate to our house! well with the help of a bunch of mouse traps we got that taken care of in short order!

Through all the business I have been experimenting with some new to me ingredients, as well as new cooking styles, now I am so excited to share them with you! my sister came over and helped me figure out the technique of sour dough bread (I will share this with you next time) and now that has opened up the world of traditional cooking to me! I am hoping to experiment more with that this winter when I have more time. Right now I am also learning how to cook with garlic. This is an ingredient that we have always enjoyed eating, our family loves the rich flavor garlic adds to our dishes. Since we have started growing it I use it a lot more and try a few different things! the recipe I want to talk about to day is the extreme but it was delicious!

the veggie bed for the chicken




Well my dad has been growing garlic for years, just enough for himself and he grew most of our seed. Anyway, last fall when we where planting he sent me a recipe that took 40 cloves of garlic!! Well, i was curious what so much garlic would taste like in one pot so I told him next year we could have him over for supper and try it out! it was amazing! and, to top it off I made a delicious garlic dip for with the french fries. My brother and his girlfriend came as well which was kinda stressful because not everyone loves garlic! anyway here is the chicken recipe! I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Chicken with forty cloves garlic.

2 cups coarsely chopped yellow onions

Ready to start adding garlic

2 large celery stalks coarsely chopped

Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper

3-4 lb of chicken

40 plump garlic cloves

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

¼ cup dry white wine

1/3 cup mixed fresh herbs (such as Tarragon, Thyme, lemon verbena, lovage, chervil, parsley, rosemary, lavender)

Preheat oven to 375*F . combine onions and celery in a 5 1/2 quart dutch oven, preferably cast iron. rub salt and pepper inside chicken and place bird over onion mixture. scatter garlic cloves around chicken. pour olive oil, white wine over chicken and garlic. season generously with more salt and pepper. place 2 TBSP herbs inside chicken. scatter remaining herbs over chicken and garlic cloves. cover pot tightly, first with heavy foil, and then with the lid. Roast chicken for 1 1/2 hours. chicken should be fork tender; it will not be browned. carve and serve.