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Hi there!

I’m slowly working towards some simplicity within the home, but hey! It’s a lot of hard work!

I love having a go at growing my own veges and always use herbs fresh from my garden. I try to plant from seed whenever I can and have learnt to save and share my own seed for the following year. I make Award Winning preserves and pickles; and my husband brews Award Winning boutique beers as well. I love to stockpile and try to limit quick trips to the shops. I dabble in bread making and enjoy making my own stocks too.

I enjoy feeding my family good hearty meals, nothing like those tiny restaurant stacks you have to look for on the plate. My husband maintains our vehicles and machinery and we both enjoy fabricating on a small scale mostly relying on metal & timber recyclers for any materials needed.


While I don’t always have time to reply to comments, I love reading them. I hope you enjoy your stay and I hope you learn something new because I love sharing what I learn, and I'm always looking for another new skill myself.

Cheers!

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

ROAST GARLIC for your STOCKPILE

When you have an abundance of garlic, there are lots of ways to preserve it, including dehydrating, pickling, and roasting....I'm sure there are plenty of ways to preserve your garlic, and I would love for you to tell me. For now though this post is about roasting your garlic cloves.

I have run out of roasted garlic in the freezer, so this is why I have roasted some today.....The oven was on already for some 'Herb n Garlic bread rolls'...you can scroll down to see them........

I love having roasted garlic on hand in the freezer....I can pop some in a sauce...or gravy.....I even use it in baking sometimes....and it is good when you are desperate coughing with a really bad cold...and you need a good quick soup...Oh yeah, chicken soup...that gets a few dabs of roasted garlic too....Come to think of it...I use it alot....but I never have to put the oven on just for that purpose.....I would never dream of putting the oven on only to roast a few cloves of garlic.

Ready for roasting...but I normally peel them.......



After getting really sticky peeling the roasted cloves.
Never again!
.Now I know why I peel them before I roast them...lol


After removing them from the ice-cube tray.
stored in the freezer in a press-seal bag.

While preparing the veg for tea tonight, I decided to cook all of the sweet potato I had on hand...the excess potato will be stored in the freezer in 1 cup batches...This makes it very easy to defrost for baking scones and muffins....I lay them flat and they defrost within 10 minutes. I also do this with mashed banana and pumpkin too.
Ready for the freezer.
When I visited Sonia, she gave me half of a lovely little mini rockmelon...It was soooo sweet...I just had to save the seeds for next season....You can see here that the seeds have all seperated from the flesh (the flesh is floating with any bad seed) ....

Now they just have to dry, and I will put them away until planting time.....
Yummmm and many thanks Sonia.


Here are the Herb n Garlic bread rolls I made today....they are a bit crowded, but I only have two racks in my oven,...and one was taken up with a roasting Leg of Pork...($4.99 per kg at Aldis...huge leg of Pork for $19.67)


Herb n Garlic bread rolls.
I would love to know how you preserve your garlic...Please leave a comment, so I can get back to you.
Thanks for reading....I am loving the feedback I am starting to receive.....so leave some more today!...My boys love me reading the comments to them.

10 comments:

  1. Your rolls look DELICIOUS! I'm hankering for one slathered in butter with my tea! I too hate to turn the oven on for just one thing - it is such an energy hog. When I'm done using my oven, I open the door and let the heat come out to warm the house in winter. In summer, I try to not even use the oven - preferring the BBQ (fast and cheaper). Great idea about the roast garlic - we use so much garlic and I am going to try to grow some this year for the first time. I plan to plant them around my fruit trees to keep pests at bay. Will that work?

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  2. Is there a recipe you can share for the rolls? tee hee. It is most likely somewhere already on your blog. I love to do things in ice cube trays. Thanks for the tips.
    Melissa

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  3. Im jealous of those lovley bread rolls. THey look so light and fluffy. Mine always seem very dense. Sorry no ideas on the garlic storage. and I will defiantly introduce you to April. As soon as holidays are over we will sort something out.
    Donna

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  4. Hey Melissa, I will get the recipe out tomorrow after lunch, fairly busy in the morning....and off to bed now.....what other things do you do with ice-cube trays?

    Hey DOnna, Thanks for the lovely compliment on my rolls.....I will definitely be seeing April then...what a great day that will be....meeting you and April....how cool.

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  5. Those bread rolls look amazing, but I'm gluten free so I couldn't eat them any way...I'm so impressed with your blog I just had to add it to my blog list on my blog so all of my readers can drop by and visit you...
    Sherrie from Simpleliving :)

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  6. I also cook in the bbq in summer, it saves heating up the house when it's stinking hot....
    Don't be jealous Donna, just make some...they are very forgiving when they start to rise and looking forward to meeting April.
    Sherrie, my bread machine manual has a whole section on gluten free recipes..I could check out which recipes are in it for you if you like....and thanks for adding my blog to your blog, it's greatly appreciated.

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  7. Hi Nellymarry,
    Some years back I made salad dressing with extra virgin olive oil , lemon juice and a dash of honey and put in heaps of garlic cloves, after a few weeks I ate the garlic cloves they were like pickled onions, still cruchy but with out the strong garlic taste, they were delicious. I thought I will make them again,but I haven't had enough garlic, but will again when I do..
    Sherrie from Simpleliving :)

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  8. I have had good luck just storing garlic in a dark cool dry place, but I've also pickled them. They lose a bit of bite that way. I like your idea though so thanks for sharing it.I'll try that too:)
    Just found your blog and am really enjoying it!

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  9. Sherrie, that pickled garlic sounds divine, but be careful you don't leave it too long, as the garlic clove/oil mix can deteriorate quickly and turn bad....I have attempted garlic oils before leaving the garlic in the oil...it is better to infuse the oil by heating the oils with the garlic, then remove the garlic before bottling.

    Linda, I am looking for a pickled garlic recipe, one that will last, possibly with a vinegar base, not an oil base. If you have one I would appreciate it if you could share it with us. Thanks for reading my blog, I'm off to read yours too.

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  10. Hi Nellymary
    Here is a very good link that will help you pickle garlic.http://www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com/pickle.htm

    There are more basic recipes than this one, just a vinegar brine and garlic tnat are just as good. Let me know if you are interested in the plain ones as well.

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