Freezing Garlic

Update: Freeze in jars, not bags!

Every year I say I'll puree and freeze half of the garlic we harvest and buy in the fall. And, every year I put it off, leaving what remains in February and March to shrivel and dry out in its papery shell. Today, I finally went to look up the proper way to puree and freeze garlic (with lots of oil, apparently) and found that instead I could just freeze the cloves, peeled or unpeeled, and that is what I did. I'm hoping the VegKitchen folks know what they are talking about. It should defrost a little squishy but with good flavor. I imagine it will be somewhat like using frozen ginger.

The remains of our garlic from the fall. 

Some of it was starting to sprout.

 

Some of it looked fine but once I split the cloves I found it was sprouting.

 

Others had already started to brown and dry out. The other side of this clove was all that dark brown color -ick!

 

The garlic we'd stored in an open paper bag still had the skin firmly attatched so I did not fully peel those cloves. The garlic stored open, although in a dark pantry, was easier to peel. I suspect it was drying out faster than the garlic in the bag, but they were also different varieties.

 

There was some that had bad spots but the cloves were big enough to salvage. These I cleaned up, minced, and stored in oil for cooking today and tomorrow.

I think I caught it just in time. I took over an hour to peel them all and was a rather boring thing to do but I'm glad we got to them in time. It's too sad to find them inedible.