Garlicpalooza

Remember how I had garlic coming out of my ears a few days ago? Yeah, I still do. But today I found the time (which is a huge thing for me considering I have 5 young kids!) to pickle, freeze AND make dinner tonight with what was left of our first 3 lbs of garlic. Go me!

Trying to use up such an...odoriferous vegetable as garlic requires getting creative. Not wanting to waste it, I decided to pickle some. I've never pickled a garlic anything in my life. Actually, I haven't pickled ANYTHING in my life. Guess I need to get on that now, huh? I used a basic recipe I found in one of my german cookbooks for pickling:

2 cups garlic cloves
1 1/2 cups water
4 tsp salt
2 tsp dried herbs (I used thyme)

This was all assembled into a quart mason jar and is now fermenting happily on my counter for the next 3-7 days. I'll let ya know how it goes. Maybe pickled garlic is a delicacy that's been lost through the generations? Or maybe there's a reason no one eats it much. Either way, we now have a quart of it and someone's gotta eat it. Here's to hoping it's good!

My second way of preserving our garlicky abundance was to freeze it. I found a few options online while researching 'freezing garlic', and I opted for the oil method. Basically, I took a ratio of 2 parts garlic to 1 part olive oil, added it to my food processor and processed until it looked like minced garlic paste. Stored it in a mason jar and put it in the freezer. From what the food storage website said it should stay semi-firm and I can just pull out enough of the garlic mixture to cook with when I need garlic. Easy peasy! I tried it tonight when making dinner and it was great! Definitely going to do this again (possibly soon...we do have another 3 lbs to use up) when I have another free mason jar!

I'll be safe from vampires tonight!

One of the things I absolutely don't like doing is peeling garlic. It's something about the paper-thin peels around the cloves that stick to your hands and fly all over the counter and floor that drives me up a wall. I try to avoid peeling them at all costs. Weird? Maybe, but hey. A couple of weeks ago I saw a gigantic bag of peeled garlic at our warehouse grocery store and bought it. Apparently my husband also hates peeling garlic because he bought another bag and brought it home. Now I have two 3 lbs bags of peeled garlic cloves in my refrigerator. The inner foodie in me came out today (and the pragmatist - I have 6 lbs of garlic to use up) and I decided to make something with it. The result was FANTASTIC! And it has the added perk of being not only high in natural antioxidants, but it's also a natural bug and human repellant if you eat enough of it. And you're definitely safe if Dracula decided to pay you a late night visit (pull in the welcome mat and keep the windows shut just in case though, ok?)

40 Clove Garlic Chicken
(found on the Spice World, Inc. website - the company that packages the gigantic bag of garlic)

1 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
2-3 lbs. roasting chicken, washed and cut into pieces
Salt and white pepper, to taste
4 Tbsp. fresh rosemary
1 cup flour
40 large peeled garlic cloves

1 cup dry white wine (Maybe I used a teensie weensie bit more than this...it turned out great!)
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups heavy cream

Heat the butter and olive oil in a heavy skillet. Season chicken with salt, pepper and rosemary. Dredge chicken in flour. When the pan is hot but not smoking, add chicken, skin down. Sauté until golden brown on both sides. Remove. Add garlic and sauté until light brown. Add white wine and chicken stock. Return chicken to pan. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove chicken and keep warm. Turn heat to high and reduce liquid by half. Remove to blender, add cream and puree sauce. Serve over chicken.

I managed to cook this up this afternoon while juggling a 2 year old running around screaming 'I'm crrrrazzzzyyyy, Momma' and 4 babies pitching hissy fits that their binkies fell out - so it's really easy and quick to make. The sauce was so good that I doubled the recipe to make extra sauce to serve over pasta! Even my picky two year old loved it. And since it's basically oozing garlic, that's something. So, there ya have it - use for 1/2 a bag of garlic. Now what to do with the other half?

Natural Flying Insect Repellent ala Cow

 Anyone who owns a cow quickly finds out that flies REALLY like cows. They sorta go together like peanut butter and jelly, or manure and..uh...flies. We don't really like using non-organic type solutions around our farm. No round-up (straight vinegar works wonders on sidewalk weeds), no commercial pesticides if we can help it and no chemical insecticides on our livestock or pets unless it's a very last resort. SO, once Honey was delivered to our farm I realized we needed a fly repellent badly. She had been kept on a big, dry pasture with a bunch of other cattle since the rancher bought her from a dairy. So, you can imagine how she looked. And how many flies hitched a ride with her up to our place. On Keeping a Family Cow forum I found a thread on Flying Insect Spray for Cows and tried it with what I had on hand. It's really easy to make, and works GREAT. Our poor cow was not used to being handled, but even she held still so I could spray her down with this stuff once she realized the flies had stopped biting!

From the Keeping a Family Cow  Forum
Organic Flying Insect Spray

3/4 Vegetable Oil (I've used Grapeseed oil for mine)
1/4 cup organic Apple Cider Vinegar
Squirt of liquid dish soap
40 drops citronella essential oil
30 drops lemongrass essential oil
20 drops camphor essential oil
20 drops cedarwood essential oil
15 drops clove essential oil
Water
Fills a 32 oz bottle. Apply 2X a day, morning and evening

 My recipe using what I had on hand

3/4 cup Grapeseed Oil
1/4 cup Apple Cider Vinegar or White Vinegar
40 drops Tea Tree essential oil
40 drops Peppermint essential oil
20 drops Lemon essential oil
Water
Makes 28 oz. Apply 2X per day to resident Bovine.

I have been making this recipe up by the gallon and found the spray lasts a whole 24 hours after you apply it at keeping flies at bay. It works great, can be made up in bulk, is CHEAP, completely non-toxic and keeps the flies off my Honey! How can ya beat that?