Garlic

Garlic is something most of us commonly use. I have garlic growing all over the back of my garden. I’ve always cut the leaf tops and use it like I would an onion top and assumed that if I let the flower finish and dry that I was doing the right thing.

Wrong! A horticulturist now tells me that I should cut the flower and use it in salads (don’t use it in cooking). I should wait until the end of summer and then dig some of the plants up. This way the bulbs will have grown to their maximum and the remaining plants will propagate. This spring I dug up the largest garlic plant expecting to find large bulbs beneath the surface. Instead, after exploring with a shovel to quite some depth, I discovered something more onion-like and no cloves. Well, darn. I’m cutting the heads this year and hope to have cloves.

I use the stems, finely chopped, along with agave nectar in my bread making–one whole wheat loaf nearly every day. I add three tablespoons of flax meal (not just the seed) along with some nijilla seed. One and only one kneading and I’m done. None of this four times stuff and wait 16 hours. Two hours total and I bake it.  I serve it nearly every morning in warm weather with coffee to my friends who come over for the day’s conversation beginning around 7 A.M. There’s something about fresh baked bread that attracts the kinds of people you want at your table. It’s a great way to start your day. I write the rest of the day knowing that I’ll never run out of subject material or good feelings.