GARLIC!  Who doesn’t love garlic? I love fresh garlic better than any JAR-lick. I find that the JAR-lick just doesn’t taste the same or have the same freshness.

I keep fresh garlic on hand however, if you go a while between uses, that garlic can dry up and become unusable. I have a solution for this! Especially if you are like me and prefer fresh minced garlic.

First things first, go and get yourself a massive bag of fresh garlic heads (bulbs), anywhere from two to 5 pounds.  You will find these cost around $6-8 for the entire bag.  Be sure to select a bag where none of the bulbs are blackened or soft.  You want tight, firm bulbs for the freshest garlic.

Next step is to get out your handy dandy chopper.  I have an old mini electric chopper that I use for smaller batches and my Ninja Pro for bigger batches. I”ll post it below.  Then go ahead and get the outer papery skin off as best you can and break off the cloves.  You’ll want to cut off the belly button end (this is the end that was attached to the bulb) with a santoku or chef’s knife.

NOW smash away. Place the side of the knife over each clove and smash your palm down, crushing the clove.  This will enable the inner papery skin to just about fall off. How’s that for satisfying?

Once all the belly buttons and skins are removed from the cloves.  Now it is time to start putting those cloves in your handy dandy electric chopper. Fill as much as you can do without impeding the chopping.  Once chopped to your liking, scoop out into a gallon ziplock baggie OR reusable baggie. I am starting to use the reusable type of ziplock baggies for these sort of items.

Keep going until all your cloves are chopped/minced and in the bag.

ALTERNATIVELY, you can avoid about an 1 1/2 hours of repapering garlic cloves by buying a bag of already peeled garlic cloves.

Once all the garlic is chopped and in the baggie, you will want to flatten the garlic out as evenly as possible.

Then take the back end or handle of a spoon or utensil and “score” the garlic into small squares.  This will make it easier to snap off a section of the frozen garlic when needed.

Place in freezer and ensure it freezes FLAT.  This is a must initially or else you will not have the even squares but a jumbled mess. Once frozen, I place mine upright on one of my freezer shelves.

Now you have FRESH garlic available at your finger tips for MONTHS.  You can measure how much garlic you want to have in each square easily if you care to measure the garlic you use.

One clove of garlic is one teaspoon minced. Two cloves of garlic is two teaspoons minced.  Three cloves of garlic is one tablespoon minced. So once your chopped/minced garlic is flattened; measure a portion with a teaspoon or tablespoon based on how much you usually use and then flatten that and score the garlic based on that.  Then you’ll know how much is in each square.