Roasted, chocolate-covered garlic

Did that headline get your attention? Good. Because aside from garple and pesto, chocolate-covered garlic may be my favorite way to eat the stinky cloves. It's not difficult to make and it's pretty delicious. It's not particularly expensive to concoct and it's unusual enough that dinner guests will be impressed with your exotic addition to the meal. Yep, it just may be the perfect dessert. Folks seemed to think so when we had some at the end of our 4th of July dinner.

The key is getting good ingredients. I can't vouch for this recipe if you use crummy chocolate or old grocery store garlic. (I like Green & Black's 70% dark chocolate; Caroline is partial to Girardelli. Really, any good stuff will do.) So get yourself some chocolate and a few heads of Mountaindale Farms garlic and try this one out:

Roasted, chocolate-covered garlic

1. Peel 2-3 heads' worth of garlic cloves.
2. Toss the peeled cloves in a splash of olive oil and spread on a tinfoil-lined baking sheet. Roast in the oven/toaster oven at 350 until cloves are soft but still maintaining structural integrity (about 30 minutes). Spear each garlic clove with a toothpick, placing them on a plate with wax paper and cool.
3. Melt a bar of good chocolate in a small saucepan on the stove. When it's melted, remove the saucepan from the heat and hold each clove by the toothpick to spoon melted chocolate over it.
4. Place each chocolate-covered clove on the wax paper-covered plate and keep in the fridge for at least 30 minutes (or up to 2 days) for the chocolate to set before serving.
   

2 days? As if it would last that long....

(It was much less harsh than the chocolate-covered raw garlic Mike and I tested out last fall. I still mean to try out chocolate garlic truffles....)