RecipeMuncher

Have you ever gotten a bulb of garlic that is more potent than any other garlic than you have ever grown or purchased in your life? Please answer. I am very curious. Are there different levels of potent-ness?

Warning. I have a lethal bulb of garlic in my possession.

Yesterday. I gathered several huge, beautiful, juicy tomatoes, a cucumber, and 3 little, puny, almost invisible cloves of garlic and made a ginormous bowl of gazpacho for us and our neighbors to share.

Two tablespoons are all that were eaten. My fridge, my kitchen, heck my entire house smells of garlic. Not the good roasted garlic smell either. This is the “oh my, I am sitting way to close to a smelly person on the subway who ate a garlic pizza type of garlic smell.” So, sorry Karin I had the best of intentions but the gazpacho is gross.

I am a very slow learner. I assumed that I put too much garlic in the soup. I was wrong. There is something wrong with the garlic. It is criminal.

Tonight I whipped up a delish stuffed chicken and served it with spinach + pine nuts and Barefoot’s polenta. This polenta is a staple in the Clarke Kitchen. You simply boil 4C of chicken broth with 1 minced clove of garlic– you see where this is going. Add the corn meal in a slow stream, some butter and a few tablespoons of whipped cream cheese. So easy so tasty. Not tonight. The garlic was lethal.

What is up. Tell me. Alton Brown if you are out there, are there different levels of garlic potent-ness? How did I stumble onto a lethal bulb? Does it have to do with the freshness? Giada (my BFF from Everyday Italian) has advised me to always buy bulbs of garlic that are “tight” meaning the cloves are not pulling away. I always do this. Are there other tips that I should know?

Phew!

It’s just been so warm out there that I can’t bear to put the oven on. I’ve been living on cold beer, salad and ice-cream. Even the thought of turning on the hob bring me out in a sweat.

Nah, not really…

Though we did have a pretty nice day on Saturday - sat out on the beach and didn’t even have to put on our sweaters until 7pm! (Actually it was really nice - I even went for a swim!) But that’s not the point. When I made this last week, we had barely had a glimmer of sun in weeks (ish…) So I thought I would attempt to bring some sunshine into our lives with this no-cook pasta sauce.

And it worked. It tasted like greenhouses, gardens and lazy bees*… the noise of lawnmowers over the way, and the bbq two doors down. And just so long as I turned up the central heating and put on my SAD light, I was almost able to persuade myself that it was summer after all…

Pretending It’s Summer… Fusilli with Macerated Tomatoes & Garlic by Kittie

Tags: amp, Fusilli, Garlic, Macerated, Pretending, SUMMER, Tomatoes