happy home maker | Tragic Comedy

Ok before my furnace blew up I had been investing in food items for longterm storage and use. I got a deal on 1pound of vanila beans around new years as well as 2 gallons of peeled garlic last week. Anyway with water turned off in my house all day yesterday (furnace being replaced) I decided that it was a good time to do something about all the garlic and while I was at it make some xmas presents for next year (added bonus time spent in front of the stove means warmth). Onto the stove went the last of the water from my sink at a rolling boil for blanching as well as 2 half gallon bottles of smirnoff vodka in another pot. Over Xmas we collected the 2 sixpacks of the cute 8oz classic coke bottles and now they are going to use...into each bottle I placed a cut open fresh vanila bean and then poured 8oz of hot vodka, I also filled various other bottles that I've collected for home use. Carefully moving 12 bottles of hot vodka to another counter to cool before corking. I moved on to the garlic...How does one preserve 12lbs of garlic? let me tell you I never thought there could be such a thing as too much garlic but....anyway 6-7 lbs of it, blanched 3 times and then put into those little drug dealer sized ziplock and froze them...I filled a quart sauce pan with garlic then topped it with olive oil and set it to simmering (talk about a nice smell) and with a a bunch of the rest wrapped it in foil and roasted it in the oven before freezing it as well. I think I have about 10 cloves that are still raw. The oil cured garlic went into a jar in the frige but most of the oil got bottled for salads and cooking. The funny thing is when my wife got home from work she was convinced, from the smell in the house that dinner was gonna be garlic infused but I barely used any (one clove)...the garlic smell did however completely drive out the smell of a dead furnace (yech)...

Four Replies to happy home maker

Lori Lancaster | February 15, 2008
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Denise Sawicki | February 15, 2008
The vanilla vodka sounds like a cool gift idea. I like tasty drinks :) Glad you didn't go and make garlic vodka because that might be weird.

...Although, a google search indicates that people say that is in fact good.

Tony Peters | February 16, 2008
not vanilla vodka that would only take a bean for each gallon and it only takes a few weeks I made vanilla extract which will sit for nearly a year...but now that you mention it I think I'll get a bottle of good vodka next week and make some.

Denise Sawicki | February 16, 2008
OK cool... I obviously don't know much about these things!

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