My favourite time of year. The farmers market is full of wonderful fresh produce. So much to choose from. And my favourite is garlic. I picked up 10 bulbs of Susan Delafield garlic. One of my favourite varieties. Over the next 4 to 6 weeks I'll pick up a few bulbs every weekend and that should keep me going until after the New Year.

Di

My cousin's husband grows garlic and gave me a head of it. What a huge difference! I never knew that garlic would resemble a fresh onion when cut (the texture), or that it would be as crisp as fresh celery. What a treat! Also, discovered it is more pungent.
Yours are fabulous.
Jo

When I cook for the church I insist on fresh garlic. One woman asked if I really thought there was much difference in taste between fresh and that chopped stuff in the jar....
Abolutely!
Linda C

Shelley

Amen.

That would be a hard necked garlic? I find that the hard necked varieties keep very well, but as Jo mentioned, the fresh stuff can be a lot more pungent than the kind I buy at my local grocery and so I have to be a little more careful with it.

When I finally get out to the farm I can stop growing garlic in my flower box and actually grow it in the ground, then I'll get bigger heads. Right now I tend to get one or two cloves of garlic per head, about the size of my thumbnail, because it doesn't have room to spread out or enough sun because of the shade from my front porch roof.

Beautiful, beautiful garlic, Ann, I love those purple varieties too.

Annie

Serves 8

Ingredients

2 small whole, chicken breasts, boned and skinned, cut into thin strips
6 Tbs flour
1/2 Tbs red pepper flakes
1 tsp fresh ground pepper
salt to taste [optional]
4 Tbs yellow onion, sliced thin
6-8 cloves garlic, sliced
4 Tbs butter
6 Tbs olive oil
½ cup tomatoes, seeded, peeled, diced
1 tsp dried oregano (or a couple of sprigs of fresh)
4 Tbs fresh basil, chopped
2 Tbs fresh parsley, chopped
12 ounces chicken broth
12 ounces angel hair pasta

Directions

Flatten chicken breasts and cut into thin 1/2" by 1" strips. In a plastic storage bag, mix flour, pepper flakes, and ground pepper. Put chicken strips into bag and shake.

Slice onion and garlic. If using fresh tomatoes, peel, seed, and chop. Chop parsley and basil.

When all ingredients are prepared, put water on to boil for the pasta.

Heat 1/2 of the butter and olive oil in a large skillet on medium high heat. Add 1/2 of the chicken strips and brown each side lightly. Remove chicken from skillet with a slotted spoon, add remainder of butter and oil, heat, and add remainder of chicken. Remove when browned.

Add onion to skillet, reduce heat, and sauté until soft. Scrape chicken bits from bottom of skillet. Add garlic and sauté briefly (not brown).

Add tomatoes, oregano, basil, and parsley. Mix thoroughly and heat well. For a thicker "sauce", add a tablespoon or so of the remaining dredging flour at this point.

Add chicken stock and simmer until reduced by 1/3.

Return chicken to skillet, mix thoroughly, and reduce heat to lowest setting.

Add pasta to boiling water.

Put drained pasta onto plates in small nests and spoon chicken and sauce onto pasta.

Garnish: light sprinkle of chopped fennel leaf, parsley, basil

Joe

Jo, yes fresh is amazing. Because this garlic is soooo fresh it is still very juicy.

Linda, you are right to insist on the real thing. There is no substitute for fresh garlic.

Terri, the reason it keeps so long is because it is fresh and I store it in one spot away from any heat source. The reason garlic sprouts is because of the change of temperatures it goes through. Most of the garlic in our grocery stores comes from Asia. It is transported in refrigerated units and then when it gets to its destination it is stored in warm warehouses. And, then it is moved out into a warmer grocery store. The change from cold to warm is what causes it to start sprouting.

Annie, remember you sent me a few of your garlics? They might have been small but they were big on flavour.

Ann

I plan to plant garlic this fall. At $2.00 to $4.00 a head I think I would like to give growing my own a try.

Joe, thanks, that recipe sounds delicious.

If you really like fresh garlic, you need to grow your own. Much better from a cost perspective. It is SO easy to grow. You just set it in the fall and pretty much let it do its thing until July. If you have a really dry spring and summer some water is called for but man it is easy.

If you live in the Northwest, you really need to check out the selection at Territorial Seed Company. They have about 25+ selections, ranging from relatively mild elephant garlic to some truly hot varieties (which I like).

They are beautiful pics though!

Since it's stronger than those big white heads from the grocery store, I don't use as much anyway.

I do wonder, though, why more local gardeners don't grow garlic, you never see it at the farmer's markets here.

Annie

Fresh garlic scapes are way better than garlic. They are very expensive, if you can find them.

dcarch

Stir fryi, I guess that is why they sell garlic in a jar or powdered. Something for everyone. I love garlic so much it doesn't bother me to get it on my hands or my boards and utensils. It washes off. You would really hate the fresh garlic, because it is so juicy it really gets all over hands and boards. A little salt or fresh lemon rubbed on the hands before washing is a quick way to get rid of the garlic smell. And you can rub your wooden cutting boards with salt and a lemon to get rid of odors.
Ann

I agree with queequeg99, Territorial Seed has a great selection! But........you'll want to think about ordering NOW! They sell out of some varieties very quickly!!

I grew "Music" this year and it's wonderful! You can order now and they will wait until the appropriate planting time to bill you and ship!

Territorial Seed is only about 30-40 miles from me. I've been into their very small retail store. The majority of their business is mail order. The store is right at the testing fields so that's fun to see!

JMHO,
Deanna

We love garlic also. Planted 6 varieties this year:

Boyatyr-great bulbs of fire
Italian Late
Elephant-bought from Amish in Iowa
Purple Glazer
Siberian-beautiful purple stripe inside
Inchelium Red-somehow got lost in the digging of the garlic

Some of these varieties are new to us this year, so havent had time to use them yet. A few of the garlics are still curing.

Some of the different ways we have used the garlic is when roasting vegetables there are always at least 10 or more cloves mixed in. Yesterday we did fresh fat green beans with garlic...that was so good. Used some fresh garlic in marinade for sirlion steak on the grill. Hubby loves fresh potatoes out of the garden, mashed with lots of roasted and fresh garlic. Also roasted chicken stuffed with lots of garlic under the skin.

In terms of storing it:
I bought garlic recently, and the guy said something about it not being cured all the way-- I think the paper has to be dried out so it doesn't get moldy. I think you can do this by using the leg of pantyhose with a knot between each bulb, so you get good air circulation (Ann?)

I also experimented with the freezer, and was very pleased with the results. I did two batches, one with diced garlic and one with whole cloves. (Incidentally, stirfryi, have you tried covering entire cloves in oil and slooooow sauteeing them? It's an incredibly mild, nice garlic flavor. Alton Brown had a special-- the smaller you chop it, the stronger it tastes, something about breaking cell walls and something reacting with something to create the strong garlicky smell when you chop it). I sauteed the garlic, let it cool a little, and poured it, oil and all, into a plastic container and froze it, then dumped out the ring of frozen garlic oil and cut it into pieces, and put them in a Ziploc in the freezer, so I could just grab a slice and throw it into whatever. I'm quite pleased with the taste.

And I vote for cloves in the cloves-scapes war :-D

So I Googled :
" Garlic Powder Versus Fresh for Pasta Sauce, what do top Chef's use "
I went thru 100 Threads, most were Pasta Sauce Recipes.

Some of them were other than Pasta Sauce.
Out of 100 Threads, about 20 used fresh Garlic.

80 used Powdered Garlic.

Another Search showed that many 5 star Restaurants use
Powdered Sauce mixes.
Don't want to say which one.
I doubt if many stand there a Sautee Fresh Garlic, for a couple hundred dishes.

I've said in the past I used Fresh Garlic, for certain things.
But I have found, many years ago, that it makes no difference in Spaghetti Sauce and
many other things.

I have gotten past the Paring Knife for Cutting Garlic, like my Grandmother did.
Did a lot of trial and error testing.

Not to satisfy my tastes but to please hundreds.

Like I said before, I proved it with my own family, who all use Fresh Garlic and a Paring knife.

I won our 10 family Spaghetti Sauce competition.

You can all do your thing. If it pleases you and your family, that's all that matters.

I've found a good Garlic Powder. I'll continue to use it.
LOU

Marlingardener, the Susan Delafield is what I intend to plant.

Linda, and I only carry a pepper grinder in my purse. LOL!

Ann

However...just for kicks, I put your phrase into the Google search box and came up with just one link to a site where the recipe called for powdered garlic....on the first page...I didn't search 100 links. The others all called for fresh....and I found a link to the site linked below.

Just wondering who you are calling a "top chef"? Because I googled Marcella Hazan's spaghetti sauce and Guy Fieri's and Mario Batali's ( and I don't think you can find any more TOP chefs than those) and all use real, fresh garlic.
And, yes, the chef's in 5 star restaurants DO stand there dicing and chopping fresh garlic.
Have you eaten at Le Bec Fin or Lecroix at the Rittenhouse or Vetri? How about Bookbinders?

No one is saying you shouldn't cook whatever you choose, but I know that top chefs and 5 star restaurants don't use powdered garlic in their sauces.

I don't feel threatened by people who post recipes that I would never make and am trying to figure out why you feel the need to defend yours.

And yeah Ann....a clove of garlic and my handy dandy Swiss Army knife!! LOL!...as I said keeps the goblins and vampires away!
Linda C

-Robin

Be that as it may, I do love the stuff. And it may just be a placebo effect, but when I have a cold I'll take some chicken broth and put several whole garlic cloves in it, microwave it and consume the entire glorious mess. No microbe can withstand that assault.

And one of my favorite pasta dishes is one of the simplest--pasta with olive oil and garlic. Great stuff.

RobinKate, green garlic is one of the first "freshnesses" of my garden, I love to see those green spears popping up. And I love garlic scapes, but they are an entirely different animal than garlic cloves, I don't even compare them.

Ann T, better get yours in the ground too.

Annie

Even have a battery operated Garlic Grinder, Whooee !

Use it in many dihes and have used it in a lot of seafood meals.
The Garlic Grinder back when, was a Chef's knife.
I chopped Garlic and Parsley, until it was mush.
Probably before you were Born.

But I have to say I never worshiped Garlic or any person,
only God.

The only thing I am trying to get across is, it's not neccessary to use fresh Garlic,
to get a great Spaghetti Sauce.

I'll compare mine to anyone's.
- - - - - - - -
I put the wrong Phrase, to Google, in the Thread above.
I think it was " Garlic Powder versus Fresh "
I even saw one that Mario Batali used Garlic Powder.

Most Gourmet Chefs use Fresh ingredients on TV.
Lou
PS: remember the saying,
" you can't teach an old dog, new tricks ". I have another !

" You can't teach a new dog, old tricks ".

TIA,

Lori

BTW, shallots and leeks are also dead easy to grow and expensive to buy. Now, this was a weird weather year so my onions and leeks didn't do worth a darn, but I'm thinking of trying shallots next year.

Annie

Lori, apparently it is just as easy as Annie and Linda say.

There is lots of information on the Gardenweb Allium Forum.

Ann

Think I'm going to try a few...

Which is something I've never done, but plan to do this weekend.

Sol

Break them apart and pick out the largest and best looking Cloves. Use the small ones for cooking.
Plant them pointed side up.Mark with sticks or something.

In the spring when the scrapes grow, clip them off.
About the beginning of July, or according to your weather Zone,
Dig one and check it out !!!

I'll have to go down to my Daughters and start growing things again.
I don't know about Record sizes of tomatoes but a dinner plate size Beefsteak Tomato,
should be close to a winner.
LOU

Lori :D

They'll sprout in the spring and you can tell the scapes are ready to use when they start to curl under and they get little "bulbs".

Annie

I've tried buying the sacks of garlic from California and the garlic from China. Both start to sprout before I get half way through the bag. When that happens, I just toss what is left and buy another bag.

You have more control over garlic that you either grow yourself or purchase fresh from a local farmer. I store mine in a mesh bag in a dark cupboard and just take out a head or two at one time. I can usually get through to January with my fresh stash. I run out before it ever starts to sprout.

Ann

When you buy the bulbs, pick some that seem heavier for their size. With no Sprout showing.
Lou

I wound up with 38 kinds of garlic to plant this fall (and actually got them planted before I had to poke holes in the frozen crust!). My goal is to find a few kinds that store well. Hardneck, softneck, asian, artichoke...it's a grand experiment. I found a grower in the same USDA zone as me and I wound up ordering a bulb of this, a bulb of that.

Also planted some French red shallots this year.Mmmmmmmm......

Katie what are some of the varieties you are growing?
Also since you have already grown so many varieties what are some of your favorites?

This photo was taken 9/14. One of the last days before the basil froze. I think this year if we would of had a plant in a pot it could of been taken in and out of the garage easily, and kept going. What were the temps yesterday 70. Not bad for Iowa :)

Freezing the pesto this way makes it oh so easy to spread on bread. Sometimes I do add a bit more olive oil and fresh grated parm. to the thawed pesto. This makes the pesto seem even fresher.

Lou, they all taste great...I'll have a favorite in the spring. The one that sprouts last. Last year I had nice bulbs until late April, but that one (Chesnok Red) didn't do well this year.

Rusty