Make-ahead garlic paste: A simple trick for weeknight cooking

I recently stumbled upon a great trick for work-week cooking: garlic paste. Not the kind you can buy in jars (which I find stale with a questionable aftertaste for the most part), but a paste that you whip up on the weekend and dip into all week.

Last month I cooked for more than 20 people on three different occasions -- it was so many people, I broke down and bought a bag of pre-peeled garlic. I was in catering mode.

At the month’s end, I had 30 cloves remaining. After handing some out to neighbors, I pureed the rest with a little olive oil and popped it in the fridge. 

You cannot believe how often I dipped into that jar. I used it all week long: a garlicky salad dressing for lunch, a small dab in egg salad, a spoonful into a quick tomato sauce for pasta, slathered and broiled on bread … and on and on it went. There is something about having that garlic already prepped that made me cook even more than I normally do. 

A few caveats:

• Make a little at a time. I have found that I can always use 10-15 cloves a week.

• It is intense; it is raw, fresh garlic after all. So use it judiciously, and be sure that whomever you will be kissing, or want to kiss later, eats with you. 

• Refrigerate and use it or toss it after 5-7 days. It is so simple and inexpensive to make, there is simply no reason to risk food poisoning.