more garlic

[songbird]

finally i finished peeling, cleaning
and grinding what was left of the garlic
harvested last summer. it was not stored
in anything close to optimal conditions,
but it did hold out fairly well. some
of it was sprouting and getting small
roots on it. i had to do something with
it.

the last batch i peeled, cleaned and
ground it with a meat grinder and then
drenched it with lemon juice and froze
it packed tightly in small jars. that
has worked well. the problem is that we
are usually low on freezer space.

with what i did today i put another
five jars in the freezer. mushroom jars
work pretty well, but there were a few
larger jars too this time.

then i had to do something with what
was left. i've wanted to make a chinese
five spice based sauce. so this was the
time to give it a try.

starting with the garlic already well
drenched with lemon juice i added: 8 cups
of sugar, 2 cups water, 2/3 cup of molasses,
1/4 cup of chinese five spice powder,
1/4 cup of ground ginger and a few
tablespoons of salt.

you know how they say to taste and
adjust spices accordingly? i tasted it
and thought it needed another shot of
chinese five spice powder... then i tasted
it again and it had too much. not that
it will bother me to use this like it is
or it will be a great starter for a pot
of soup or a bbq sauce.

if i were making this again i would
go much more gradually on adding the
spices.

then i put it all up in pint jars. it
yielded just short of 7 pints of sauce.

they are fresh out of the oven and
plinking away.

to give you an idea of exactly how much
garlic was in this, when getting it going
on the stove the garlic was a mash, it
wasn't floating in liquid. with all the
sugar and molasses that just filled in
the air spaces in the garlic as the volume
didn't increase by much. after it cooked
a little while it did start getting more
liquid. i thought about getting out the
hand blender and turning it more into a
liquid, but i like chunky stuff so i decided
not to bother. it turned out well enough
for a first attempt.

i didn't add any chili peppers to this
batch as i thought perhaps Ma would try it.
i can add the chili to my own serving. i
keep a jar of chili in the fridge for when
i want a bit of zing.


songbird

[songbird]

songbird wrote:
...

> the last batch i peeled, cleaned and
> ground it with a meat grinder and then
> drenched it with lemon juice and froze
> it packed tightly in small jars. that
> has worked well. the problem is that we
> are usually low on freezer space.

...

one of these jars went into the refrigerator
to use as needed. it kept well up to this
time.

yesterday we used the rest of it in a
shrimp scampi (half olive oil, half butter,
fried garlic for a bit then added shrimp).
2/3rds of a jar was about 30 cloves of garlic
so that was some excellent shrimp.


songbird