Roasted Minced Garlic

Dinner tonight began as just a small little project I wanted to try out.  It quickly became an endeavor that lasted most of the day.  I had a jar of pre-minced garlic that I bought in a moment of weakness.  It just didn't have the yummy taste that real garlic has.  I had quite a bit left and honestly I just wanted it gone.  A quick google search showed that most people don't have a nasty bottle of garlic that needs to be used now.  So I decided to wing it myself and roast the whole bottle. (I never tackle projects on a minor scale!). 

First I drained the garlic, then spread it in two pie plates in a think layer.  Then I poured olive oil over the garlic and stirred it up.  Then I stuck it in an oven that was preheated at 350.  It took while before I started to see browning and I am assuming this is because it was previously packed in water.  However once the browning started it went pretty quick.  However every time I opened the oven only the edges were browning.  I stirred each pan to distribute it all.  This didn't work as well as I liked.

In the end I removed the garlic from the pie plates and placed it on a parchment lined pizza pan.  This worked great!  The garlic came out nicely roasted and oh-so-pretty.  I will say that the taste still sucked but since it was the same flavor the garlic had before roasting I know it was just the garlic.

The good news it you CAN roast minced garlic and it works fantastic. So give it a try.

 {Garlic in the pie pans before adding Olive oil.}

So the garlic then inspired the loaf of bread above.  I wanted a crunchy dense French bread and I wanted it in whole wheat.  And by whole wheat I mean Whole Wheat. No white flour, just wheat.  So I went to work throwing together a little flour, oil, yeast and water.  I set the loaf to the side to rise.  It doubled in less than an hour, unheard of in my wheat baking kitchen.  I shaped it, sliced the top, brushed with butter and sprinkled with Parmesan and set it to rise again.  It doubled in 15 min.   

I tossed the loaf in the oven, threw in a cup of water to create steam and shut the oven.  The resulting loaf was a shock.  I was going for thick, crusty and dense.  Instead I got light, airy, moist and a lightly crusty crust.  It was very good just not what I was going for. :)

So then I found myself naturally going towards pasta and salad for dinner.  I made a spicy marinara sauce that was a little to spicy but still oh so tasty.  All in all it was a very good dinner, even if it did take a couple hours to make start to finish.