Now that the days are growing cooler, keeping the oven on for close to an hour is much more appealing. If you are cooking a casserole or roast already, why not toss in a couple heads of garlic and make magic in your kitchen!
Roasted garlic is indeed the best thing EVER! If you've done it before, I'm willing to bet that you agree it to be one of the best pay offs for 10 minutes of your time that you can do in the kitchen. While you're at it, go ahead and roast several at once. This is something you can never have too much of, and extra can be frozen for several months.
The exact cooking time can depend on the size of the garlic heads and the age of your garlic, but in general heads of garlic will roast to perfection in about 45 minutes. To be sure, begin checking them around 30 minutes and keep cooking them until they are to your liking. Don't worry, in order to over cook garlic you would have to really be trying.
Super-simple method to roasting garlic.
Supplies:
1 (or 2 or 10) full heads of garlic
Olive Oil
Sharp Knife
Aluminum Foil
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 400F. If your adding this to the oven to roast with another recipe, simply adjust your "check it" time accordingly.
2. Cut the tip off each full head of garlic. Not much, just enough to expose each clove. Peel away the loose papery bits but leave the inner layer of paper. This will keep all the cloves snug together.
3. Wrap the garlic in the aluminum foil, leaving it open on the top. Drizzle approx. 1 tablespoon of olive oil on each head of garlic. Allow a minute or so to let the olive oil settle into the head of garlic. Now close the foil over the top, fully wrapping the garlic in the foil. Place the foil wrapped garlic on a baking sheet and place in the oven. Begin checking for the soft, roasted garlicky goodness after 30 minutes.
