GREEN, what's a "green clove"? I have never heard of that term. I need some (much needed) education here. Thanks.

>> You can also peel the cloves and put them in a jar filled with a mixture of vinegar, sugar and salt (1 cup peeled cloves; 1/2 cup rice vinegar, white wine vinegar or distilled white vinegar; 1/2 tsp sugar; 1/2 tsp pickling salt), tightly covered with a nonreactive cap and stored in the refrigerator, which will keep for a year or more.

Thanks, Sandy! I sometimes buy a jar of minced garlic in some clear liquid, but those jars are too big for me to use up quickly. I always wondered how to split one big jar up into many smaller jars, but knew I would need more "pickling liquid". Do you think that vinegar, sugar and salt would keep minced garlic OK for 6-8 months?

I seem to recall that one jar said it contained phosphoric acid, and I knew I was not going to experiment with that.

I use minced, granulated and powdered DRY garlic, but the minced wet garlic is a little better. I keep one pepper shaker filled with 2/3 granulated garlic and 1/3 black pepper. For perspective on my non-gourmet palate, I use this on TV dinners and frozen chicken patties.

"I use minced, granulated and powdered DRY garlic, but the minced wet garlic is a little better. I keep one pepper shaker filled with 2/3 granulated garlic and 1/3 black pepper. For perspective on my non-gourmet palate, I use this on TV dinners and frozen chicken patties. "

Not a bad idea. I loved the old TV dinners in the aluminum plate. Preferred it to 'real' food. Turkey with stuffing was the best. I can see now that some people's palates remain the the land of their youth; well, either that or their cooking skills. Sorry Rick. You left yourself open to that.

Garlic improves everything.

I will let you folks offer these storage techniques. Since I don't do any of them and certainly don't refrigerate any of my garlic, I have no knowledge of the (safe) storing methods you have suggested.

Just a question though. Why in the world would you want to go to this trouble and then take up your refrigerator space for a year, when the garlic will keep for up to 12 months stored in a plain brown-paper bag? Call me dumb, but I just don't understand the thought process here.

Maybe they don't process it the same way you do so cannot take advantage of brown paper bags??

The amount of time I spend cooking (counted in minutes at most) might almost double if I peeled a clove of garlic, minced it, and then washed the knife *.

I used the have a rule "no two-pot meals", but I relax that if I'm making a big batch of something like mac-and-cheese and washing the second pot is "amortized" over several meals.

Yes Mary: it's my cooking skills that are lacking (and willingness to spend time and effort). My palate is tolerant but not blind.

* The measuring spoons for dipping out dry garlic, pepper and chili powder don't need to be washed very often, I just shake powder them off into the pot. I clamp them to a magnet on the fridge so i don't need to open a drawer (or track garlic and chili powder into the silverware drawer: one civilized person DOES visit sometimes.

If I go back to using supermarket "pickled garlic", yes I will have to wash that spoon. But since I'll be the only one dipping out of that jar, I'll just use the one spoon that stays out on my place setting all the time, and it gets washed between meals anyway (unavoidable overhead, like the one plate and the one bowl).

There may be one or two wasted motions somewhere in my entire cooking / cleaning routine, but I don't know what they would be.

- - - - -

>> Why in the world would you want to go to this trouble and then take up your refrigerator space ... up to 12 months stored in a plain brown-paper bag?

I would enjoy the fresh garlic fragrance if I stored that bag in the kitchen or living room, but not Becky. She rolls her eyes at the amount of garlic I like. I have no garage and the shed is humid, funky, spider-weby and smells like old lawn clippings and oil.

But mainly the minute or so of peeling, dicing, throwing away peels and washing the knife sound like "a lot of work" by my kitchen standards. I do think about it when I see cloves of garlic in the supermarket, or when I peel and chop for Becky when she does Real Cooking.

Ever have leg of lamb with garlic slivers embedded in the lamb before cooking? Now THAT's worth WHILE!

But for sprinkling on a TV dinner, Ramen noodle soup, chicken patties, supermarket "Bachelor Chicken" or gallons of mac-and-cheese? Not so much.

I DO have SOME culinary standards. I draw the line at frozen fish sticks.

Funny, Rick, really funny. I like it! Your cooking skills are about like mine. I do ALL the grilling. Otherwise, I am pretty much a kitchen failure.

By the way, I don't think there is much "odor" coming from our pantry-stored garlic. Cured garlic, until you actually cut into the cloves, doesn't have nearly the garlic-odor as freshly dug garlic. Of course, it could be that since we always have it, we just get used to the garlic-smell.

drdawg said:Just a question though. Why in the world would you want to go to this trouble and then take up your refrigerator space for a year, when the garlic will keep for up to 12 months stored in a plain brown-paper bag? Call me dumb, but I just don't understand the thought process here.

Never had access to it from someone like YOU to learn that!!!
Supermarkets don't teach.
If your garlic is prepared to last that way, that's what I'll do with it!!

Can't go wrong there, GREEN.

That's a funny statement: "Supermarkets don't teach". I like it. Of course you know, they don't teach because they don't know.

yep.

And if they DID know, they'd hide things to increase our spending.

Now GREEN. Let's just pretend they don't tell us anything because of ignorance, not based on greed.

Sorry - My situation makes me cynical that way!

I think we have all become pretty cynical, GREEN. By the way, did you ever explain what a "Green" garlic clove was? If you did, I missed it somehow. Tell me again.

I am confused as to how that started..... Let me go back and see if I can see......

OK, I found THIS, posted by YOU on May 16:
It would be the same for us, GREEN.

Which came before THIS, posted by ME, later on May 16:
sells green cloves in BULK for cheap

I THINK I thought you used the word "green" to mean "fresh".
Either that or I was trying to say "peeled" and my brain hiccupped.
It happens.

Rick, thanks for the good laugh this morning! I suspect that if I lived by myself I would pretty much subscribe to the cooking techniques you describe, even though I'm a decent cook otherwise (not very creative, more in the find good recipes and follow the directions camp - and if in doubt, just add some garlic and hot peppers). I have to admit, though, that I'd be more likely to make a bowl of popcorn than eat a TV dinner. Mac and cheese, now that's another story -- LOVE the blue boxes (add cayenne pepper)!!

As for the question about splitting up the jar of minced garlic -- I don't know if it would work to add the garlic pickling solution, but for some reason I just don't feel that it would. It actually seems like there would be enough liquid in the big jar to split the contents up, but once it was opened it probably wouldn't keep any longer than just the original jar. Maybe just buy the smaller jars? Or (and yes, I realize this might cause an extra washing step, or at least rinsing, but would probably be worth it) buy a garlic press and use fresh garlic. Easier than mincing with a knife, although you would need to take the skin off the clove... at any rate, if you go crazy and take the garlic press route, find a sturdy one, the cheap ones break in short order.

>> Why in the world would you want to go to this trouble and then take up your refrigerator space ... up to 12 months stored in a plain brown-paper bag?

Ken -- in my case, I dry, pickle, etc. my garlic because I always have lots of garlic from my garden but the kind I've been growing doesn't store for anything like 12 months. Now, if the creole garlic works out for me, that will be a whole different happy story! And I agree that once the garlic is cured there is little to no odor when it's stored in a paper bag, at least not in the cool conditions mine has out in the garage in the fall and winter.

Crittergarden -- I'm wondering what a "green clove" is, too. Do you mean you can buy the separated cloves, rather than whole bulbs? or is it like "green onions" -- I usually have some garlic sprouting up in the spring where i missed when I was digging my garlic up the previous year, and use that to cook with as well.

Hope everyone is having a great gardening weekend!

oops -- cross-posted with your answer about the green cloves...

Sandy, you are going to be pleasantly surprised how long softneck and certainly Creole garlic will keep, compared to hardneck. When I previously stated that my wife had just opened up the last 1/4 lb. bag (brown-paper of course) of Creole garlic, and that garlic was bagged in early June, I am telling the God's honest truth. And when I say "keeps for 12 months", I mean that the flavor and pungency is still strong and the cloves firm. Believe me, I do absolutely nothing special to make my garlic hold up. I do exactly as I described and anyone can do the same. I do know, and I label the bags so my wife keeps it straight, to use the hardneck first, then the softneck, and finally finish up with the Creole.

I just got back from our local Farmer's Market, and two growers had garlic. One grower had almost the identical garlic (size/color) of what's found in the grocery stores. They probably averaged about 10-12 bulbs per pound. I asked him what variety they were and he said 'Chinese pink'. Not too many years ago all our garlic came from one area, Gilroy, CA. The town of Gilroy calls itself the "Garlic Capitol of the World". They grow two types, identical other than one harvests earlier than the other. Now almost all our garlic comes from China, varieties unknown. I have a feeling that it is 'Chinese pink' since it looks almost identical to that grown in CA. Just my guess.

The second grower only had 'Elephant' garlic though the sign only said "GARLIC". I asked him whether he knew that Elephant garlic was not even a garlic, but was more closely related to the onion. With a sly grin, he said: "Oh, you are just splitting hairs". He did not care! I guess I should not have cared either, but I did. I did not say another word. He knew that I knew he was falsely labeling an "Onion" as a "Garlic". I had made my point and felt better doing so! Sometimes I wish I did not know as much as I do about certain things. Then I wouldn't care about what I didn't know.

I did buy a nice loaf of sourdough bread. My wife is a CA gal and loves sourdough. So my trip to the Farmer's Market wasn't a total bust.

Ken, this should give you a chuckle -- about 1/3 of the garlic that i've been planting has been softneck, Western Rose and Polish, with the other 2/3 being hardneck varieties (Music and an unknown variety that was shared with me by a friend quite a few years ago, he had no idea what it was). I've been using essentially all of the softneck type to make my garlic powder, because I like the larger hardneck cloves for cooking, less hassle with peeling so many cloves and whatnot. So, it seems I've been using all the garlic first that would actually keep the longest... might have to modify that system this year!!

I've never even tried the "elephant garlic," but did know it was related to onions or shallots and not a true garlic. Supermarkets don't offer much in the way of teaching, but it would be kind of nice if the sellers at farmer's markets would do so! The Chinese Pink garlic is offered in quite a few seed catalogs -- last night I was looking at the Territorial Seeds catalog to see if there was anything else that I wanted to order for the garden, and happened to see that they sell it; it's supposed to be an extra-early-maturing softneck.

I'm definitely not from California, but I love sourdough, too! I've been experimenting with baking it for the last couple of years, and finally think I've gotten the knack of it -- took me a while to actually grasp the fact that the dough would take much longer to rise than I'm used to when using yeast -- like 12 or more hours for the first rise (as compared to about 1 hour with yeast). Being able to maintain a starter and not have to depend on commercial yeast kind of appeals to me -- and it makes great pancakes as well.

Yum.

You have told me something I did not know, since I don't grow Chinese Pink. I specifically asked the young fellow at the stand (it is either his farm [but he looked like he was still in college] or his family's) how he managed to dig the softneck so soon. I proceeded to tell him that I just dug all my hardnecks up and that hardnecks are ready 2-3 weeks earlier than softnecks. He and I basically dug ours up at the same time. He did not know, just knew they "looked" ready. Now, with your statement that the Chinese pink comes in extra-early, I know. This further causes me to think that this is indeed either the same as the CA garlic, or something extremely similar. There is California early (harvested now) and there is California late, harvested mid-summer. I just think this Chinese pink is the same as California early. That's as good a guess as any.

If you eat/use your garlic fast enough, it really doesn't matter which variety you use first. Since it all does fine for at least four months, and you do something with it all within four months, you'll be fine. The hardneck doesn't necessarily go bad when the clock chimes "Four months", but it has a tendency to begin sprouting. It wants to go in the ground, and four months from harvest is when it will begin to be planted. Apparently softneck and Creole would rather be eaten than buried! Plant varieties have their own cycles and those cycles are hard to change.

drdawg said: Not too many years ago all our garlic came from one area, Gilroy, CA.

I lived in CA in the 80s and 90s and I remember when garlic had FLAVOR.
"Christopher Ranch" garlic is what I used to buy in the jars after I moved out of the city (SF) to the mountains.

I regret I never made it to the garlic festival!
Would certainly have tried the ice cream.