Roasted Garlic: Thursday’s (Creepy) Treat

I should have tried roasting garlic a long time ago, but it seemed like a lot of hassle for a lowly accoutrement. However, since garlic is white when raw and a mellow tan/gold when roasted—just the color combo I needed for Thursday of Eat the Veggie Rainbow week—I decided to give it a go.

As it turns out, roasting garlic is a snap: the only cooking gear needed is a piece of aluminum foil! And it’s fun to make, in a slightly macabre way—first you behead the garlic head (wrap your head around that), then you shmear it with olive oil while it ogles you with its little garlic eyeballs, and then finally you wrap it up in a cute foil package and shove it in the oven.

The results? Round, lush garlic flavor without the harsh bite, and a smooth, almost creamy texture that’s divine on its own or smashed on french bread. But take my advice and roast at least two heads at a time; hubby and I put away an entire head of garlic in about two minutes and were hankering for more!
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Roasted Garlic

Roasting time and temperature came from the inimitable Mark Bittman in his cookbook, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. (I know, I'm on a roll with that book.) I got the idea to forego the baking pan and just wrap the garlic in foil from another blog, Cooking...by the seat of my Pants. Let's hear it for zero cleanup!

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Prep Time 1 hour hr

Total Time 1 hour hr

Course Side Dish

Servings 2

Calories 31 kcal

Ingredients

  

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• 1 head of garlic firm and unblemished
• drizzle of olive oil
• salt

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Instructions

 

• Preheat the oven to 375℉.
• Peel the outer papery layers from the head of garlic, leaving the head intact.
• Behead the garlic head, exposing as many of the cloves as possible. (I went back with a paring knife and lopped the tops off a few cloves that I missed with my chef’s knife, but that was probably overkill. Heh.) They should look like tiny little eyeballs staring at you!
• Place the head, roots down, on a piece of aluminum foil about 12 inches square. Drizzle the exposed cloves with olive oil, spreading it evenly over the cloves with your fingers.
  
• Wrap the foil around the outside of the garlic head, forming a cute little parcel.
  
• Roast at 375℉ for 40 minutes to an hour. It’s ready when you can stick a knife easily into a couple of the cloves and the head is a browned around the edges. (Mine went a little more than 50 minutes and probably should have gone longer, but the anticipation was killing me!)
  
• Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves directly from their skins and smash onto sliced crusty bread or crackers. Sprinkle with salt and serve. (You could even mix the salt and roasted garlic in a separate bowl first if you want to get really fancy.)
• Dig in!

Nutrition

Calories: 31kcalCarbohydrates: 5gProtein: 1gFat: 1gSaturated Fat: 0.2gSodium: 22mgPotassium: 56mgFiber: 0.3gSugar: 0.1gVitamin C: 4mgCalcium: 25mgIron: 0.2mg

Keyword Halloween, holiday, vegan

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