Garlic Potato Salad

 

Garlic Potato Salad

Boil 3 lbs. of peeled, diced potatoes.  Drain and cool.  Then add to 2 cups of diced celery, 1 small diced onion, 4 diced cloves of garlic, 2 red mini peppers and 1 cup light mayonnaise.  Add fresh parsley or cilantro for a unique taste.

Dehydrating Garlic and Delicious Herb Cookies

Last year along with my heirloom garlics that I planted I also picked up a package of garlic from the hardware store – it was labeled Robust Italian Garlic.  The results did not even compare to the heirloom varieties I purchased from Seed Savers Exchange.  Although the garlic is quite spicy, it is very, very small.   I decided to make some garlic powder with it.  I peeled all the cloves and sliced them up -

I placed all the sliced up garlic in my Excalibur Dehydrator and let it do its magic – it took most of the day for the pieces to fully dry out.

 Garlic in dehydrator

 Dried garlic

I then used my coffee grinder to make powdered garlic.

 Grinding garlic to powder Finished product

I now have my own Homemade Garlic Powder!  I also dried and powdered jalapeno peppers and I must NOTE:  a word of caution with both the garlic, but more so for the jalapenos…..be careful when opening the grinder after the product is made into powder!!  It will knock you out if you take a big whiff…open the container with caution and I actually held my breath while it calmed down.  I left the room with the jalapenos; it was wicked!!

Now to the Delicious Herb Cookies -

 Herb cookies

Cream together 1 cup butter with 1 1/2 cups of sugar; add to this 2 1/2 cups flour & 1 tsp. cream of tartar.  Add 2 eggs & 3 tblspn. fresh herbs (I used sage, oregano & parsley).  Chill the mixture for a few hours; add chopped nuts for even more flavor.  Roll into balls and bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.  You can roll them in powdered sugar but I decided not to since it added more calories and I was more interested in tasting the herb flavors.  Great flavor….Great cookies!

Garden Tip – As you clean up your garden for fall, make sure you continue to compost all your kitchen scraps (minus meat and oils), newspapers, leaves, etc. either directly into your garden area (turning at least every week or so) or in a compost bin.  You will have great results come springtime when you are ready to start your new garden.

Garlic planted

I have 2 locations I have planted garlic this year – the distance between the 2 is a 5 hour drive and the weather and soil conditions are quite different.  Last week we constructed a raised bed in the location further down south since the clay soil is difficult to garden in -

 Raised bed

 

I used a bulb digger tool to dig out the soil and placed the clove of garlic.  The garlic is planted “point up”

I planted 80 larger bulbs of the 4 different varieties and about 150 smaller bulbs.  Some varieties of garlic will grow smaller bulbets along the stalk and these can be planted but need an extra year to develop (first year planting these so we will see how they do).

Today …. was the “Great Garlic” planting day though!  I planted over 500 bulbs (in our other location).  Along with the 4 varieties I added 3 new types; Lorz Italian, Broadleaf Czech and Persian Star.

 Garlic anxiously awaiting planting

The garlic is planted about 2 inches down into the soil, about 4 inches from each other and approximately a foot apart each row from each other.  Last year I planted 6 inches apart and all was well, so hopefully closer will not affect the growing garlic.  I will lay a heavy layer of mulch over the planted area once the leaves fall – we will grind them a bit and layer over the area.

Planting Garlic

We are preparing the area where we will be planting our crop of garlic this year.  We have gardened in this spot before but I let it become overgrown with weeds the past few months …

In addition to the 4 varieties I grew last year – Chet’s Red Italian (softneck), Inchelium Red (softneck), Shvelisi Chesnok Red (hardneck) and Chrysalis Purple (hardneck); I will be planting Lorz Italian (softneck), Broadleaf Czech (softneck) and Persian Star (hardneck) also.

I was very happy with the garlic harvest this year and all the cloves will be used as seed, except for a few that we will keep to cook with.