Around the end of March we started buying the green garlic that lasts until about now when it's skins begin to harden and the cloves are pronounced. In the beginning it is more like a fresh green onion and the cloves are not yet formed. We love to eat green garlic on fresh bread slathered with olive oil. We use garlic for health blood pressure and strong immune system, to name a couple of it's life giving qualities.

Today when Ronald was at the Farmer's Market he bought 10 bunches of 3 green garlic and a woman observing him asked him what he would do with them. He told her I was going to dry them out, but he couldn't remember how to do it.

I thought I would post how I am going to dry the garlic and show a few stages of green garlic and talk about how I use it.

Drying Green Garlic

It is quite simple to dry garlic. Buy the late stage green garlic and either hang it or spread out loosely in a dry, dark climate. Do this for a few weeks and by then your garlic should look papery and a bit shrunken. Now if you bought enough, like my dear husband had the foresight to do, you'll have garlic for many months to come.

Stages of Garlic

Here are some pictures with some stages of green garlic from over the past few weeks. These pictures are more from the later stages of the green garlic and #1 are just starting to form cloves. At this point they begin to get hot and are spicy when you eat them raw. Before that you can eat the garlic raw without the heat - when they look more like a green onion.

The picture directly below:
1. The small bunch of 5 is from 3 weeks ago.
2. The ruby colored garlic in the red bowl are from last week.
3. The large bunch - brought home by Ronald today.
4. The small bowl has dried garlic bought at the store.

My husband picked up a few things from the farmer's market this morning, so when he returned I used it all for a fresh made omelet.

Green garlic
Green onions
Shitake mushrooms
Habanero pepper
Wild arugula
Coconut oil
Sea Salt
Eggs





I put coconut oil in the frying pan and after it melted I tossed in a pinch of coarse sea salt. I always wipe the coconut oil from the spoon and rub it on my face, arms and in my hair as the properties in coconut oil are good for the skin and hair.

Next I chopped the onion, green garlic, pepper, mushrooms and tossed them in the now heated oil. Sauteing lightly, I whipped up the eggs and fine chopped the wild arugula & grated some Parmesan, putting them both in the whipped eggs and blending it in. This mixture I now poured into the sauteed veggies.

Cooking the eggs on low heat until soft I find gives the kind of omelet we like, not rubbery. While doing that I chopped fine more green garlic put it on buttered fresh Levain walnut bread from Mayfield Bakery and lightly toasted under the broiler.

We enjoyed our omelet and garlic toast on the deck in the warm Spring sun.

While I worked, I put all the garlic and onion tails, soft garlic skins and the stick ends of the arugula into a pot which will later have more greens, potatoes, onion, etc added to water to make a nourishing broth to take to work.

Since Spring brought the beginning of the year's bounty of food to the Farmer's Market, we are so grateful to walk or ride our bikes downtown to stock up on a week or two worth of fresh, organic and small-farm lovingly grown veggies and fruits.

Here are some pictures of yummy things we brought home.

New baby cucs; young artichokes, wild greens including arugula, green garlic, baby lettuces, cilantro bunch and tomatoes. The oranges we picked this morning from the tree outside our kitchen window.

I've had an enjoyable afternoon putting up 3 little jars of dill pickles from fresh ingredients I got at the Farmer's Market this morning. I also made a 1/2 gallon of sauerkraut from red cabbage I got from farmer Matt.  I planted hot peppers in a small pot I keep on the front porch and I added a few into the pickles and sauerkraut. You can see one of the peppers here in front of the cucumbers smashed into the top of the jar holding down the sauerkraut which can't rise above the brine without consequences.

I love fermented foods and so does my gut. Adding some, garlic, spices and peppers really makes the good!

My husband is also crazy about my hot peppery pickles and sauerkraut. I haven't made any since last fall. Today it's sprinkling and cloudy - my kinda all day kitchen pampering day.