The Aroma Of Garlic!

[GoDawgs]

One of the last two bundles of garlic were thin sliced today and made four trays that are in the dehydrator right now. I sure love that mini garlic mandolin as it saves so much time! I whiz up the dehydrated garlic into garlic powder and it's so much better than that stuff loaded up with fillers at the store! It has to be kept in the freezer though or it will cake up. That's OK with me. Small price to pay for quality. I can always buy fresh garlic for cooking but I can't buy great garlic powder! Now there's just one more 8-bulb garlic bundle left from what was harvested at the end of May. The bulbs are thinking about sprouting so I might have to just go ahead and dehydrate the rest before it does.

The pot of oregano needed a haircut today so there's one tray of that in the dehydrator too. The house smells like an Italian restaurant. I can live with that!

[peebee]

When I was a kid, people would put rice grains in the salt shaker to keep the salt dry. Would that help with the garlic powder? Pure homemade powder sure sounds great.
If you love the aroma of fresh garlic, roll down your windows as you drive thru the garlic capital of CA, Gilroy. So pungent. I like a whiff, but not several minutes of unrelenting garlic smell. I often wondered how one can live there, but I guess you can get used to it

[Rockoe10]

I'm s proponent of the rice in the salt shaker. I got some weird looks from the wife the first time i did it, shortly after we moved in together. Now, she lives by it too. I can't help but think it would work for garlic powder as well

[GoDawgs]

I do the rice in the salt shaker too. @peebee , thanks for that great idea about trying it with the garlic powder! I just put some sushi rice grains in the garlic powder shaker as they're fat enough so they won't shake through the holes in the lid. Will report back in several days.

Hmmm, that's good for sprinkling powder on stuff (I do that a lot) but I just realized I might still have to keep some powder without rice in it in the freezer for powder I need to measure out.

[worth1]

I couldn't get tired of the smell of garlic.
Better than a sheep farm.

[Julianna]

Gilroy really smells like that in July. I havent noticed it otherwise.i bet yhatit is when they lift them all.

[bower]

Digging Spanish Roja on a hot day.... mmmmmmm
Like cleaning and chopping a fresh matsutake... almost better than eating it.

[GoDawgs]

I did put rice in the spice jar shaker, using the fatter sushi rice as the shaker holes were a bit larger than those on a normal salt shaker. So far, four days later, it's working! No clumping.

Thanks again for the suggestion!

[zeedman]

All of last year's garlic (about 100 bulbs) is chipped, dehydrated, and stored in freezer bags. Even through the bags, it smells wonderful whenever I walk past that cabinet.

I grind the garlic chips lightly in a blender when we need garlic powder, then sift it to separate the powder from the chunks. The reason I don't grind it all down to powder is that those chunks go into a hand-held pepper mill. As long as the chunks are not too large, the pepper mill grinds them easily. DW will use the powder for cooking; but for seasoning to taste, the garlic ground fresh by hand is even better (and no rice required).

[GoDawgs]

All of last year's garlic (about 100 bulbs) is chipped, dehydrated, and stored in freezer bags. Even through the bags, it smells wonderful whenever I walk past that cabinet.

I grind the garlic chips lightly in a blender when we need garlic powder, then sift it to separate the powder from the chunks. The reason I don't grind it all down to powder is that those chunks go into a hand-held pepper mill. As long as the chunks are not too large, the pepper mill grinds them easily. DW will use the powder for cooking; but for seasoning to taste, the garlic ground fresh by hand is even better (and no rice required).

That's a GREAT idea! I need to find an inexpensive pepper mill for that dedicated use. Thanks!