The smell of garlic is in the air

I have an admission. I am a garlic addict. There isn't a meal cooked under my watchful eye that doesn't have garlic salt in it at the least. At the most, there is so much garlic that you can still taste it hours later... Mmmmmm.

 

Of course my very favorite thing to do with garlic is roast it. When you roast it it goes from tangy and hot, to mild and sweet. It's the closest thing to candy that I know how to make.

 

It all starts with a head of garlic. Chop the top off and set in some foil. Then throw some herbs on it (I chose fresh basil and fresh rosemary here), and slather everything in a decent amount of extra virgin olive oil:

 

Wrap this up in foil then apply heat. It doesn't matter if it is the oven, the broiler or the grill. Heat until, when you open the door (or lid) you smell garlic, but sweeter.

 

Unwrap the magic, and you get some nice golden goodness:

 

Now for the hard part. You have to wait for it to cool down!! We want the cloves out of their papery prison, but we want to keep our mits from blistering too. After it does finally cool, you can get the cloves out by gently pushing at the base of each clove, they should slide right out leaving you with this (if you are a garlic freak this is as far as you need to go. It is now ready for consumption):

 

From here it is up to you! You can slice the cloves or leave them whole. If you are a baker you might throw these straight into a batter and bake a nice loaf out of it. If you are me you will add it to everything. This particular batch made it into dinner (a post on that later), as well as a melted butter. I minced the cloves and mixed it with some melted butter:

After it's all mixed together, roll it up in some wax paper and throw it in the fridge. Next time you make french bread, or steaks just roll some roasted garlicky goodness on!

 

So, am I the only one? Or are there other garlic nuts out there?