please press the garlic

today, i learned how to press FRESH garlic instead of using the powdered stuff.

it was SO STINKING YUMMY.

the last time sam and i were over at our friends' house, they decided to cook dinner for us. being the southern-raised girl that i am, i of course had to offer to help, and while i was chopping and sauteing, etc etc, i saw my friend whip out this thing that looked like a can opener without the opener part. not wanting to seem ignorant of all the fun kitchen gadgets in the world, i just watched out of the corner of my eye as she yanked a clove of garlic off a half-used bulb, popped the peel off like rachel ray, and stuck it in the not-can-opener. catching on that it was clearly for garlic, i honed my peripheral spying skills and watched curiously for what happened next. she squeezed the two handles together and slowly, the not-can-opener produced what looked like a play-doh workshop version of garlic. i was amazed. giving up on acting like i knew what was going on, i commented on how cool that thinger was; she said "oh yeah, i couldn't live without my garlic press". at which point we began a rather lengthy conversation on the benefits of using fresh garlic as opposed to the powdered garlic i used all the time to season my food. i was intrigued. so, when i got home, i began my quest for a garlic press.

4 weeks later, i finally found one i was willing to spend the money on (thank you target!) and on my next shopping run, i picked up a few bulbs of garlic.

tonight was my first opportunity to use it. i was very excited to pop some fresh garlic into my taco meat- it was going to make taco night that much more awesome. so i pulled the bulb out of the pantry and took a look. and i looked. and i turned. and i looked. and i felt. and i scratched my head. how was i supposed to actually get to the cloves? should i cut it? peel it? pull? i looked up a totally unhelpful video online and decided, like any good cook would do, to just go for it. i pulled off the outer layers like an onion, and voila! a clove popped off in my hand. and then another. and one more for good luck. thinking back to what i had seen my talented friend do (and what i've seen on my beloved food network), i pulled out my biggest knife, put the flat side against the garlic, and banged. and it actually popped out of the peel, just like i've seen other people do. it was pretty cool. so then, it was into the garlic press. it was harder to squeeze than i expected, but it came right on out, and every time i squeezed, i would scrape the garlic off into the pan and then turn the clove and squeeze again. you can get a surprising amount of stuff out of one clove of garlic, including juice.

i used 3 cloves of garlic total for all of our taco meat, and the result was amazing. the whole meal just tasted so fresh and yummy and amazing. even my husband noticed how tasty the whole thing was. and it made me feel like a real cook when i was using it, too.

i'm officially a fresh garlic convert :-)