Roasted Garlic and a Nap

When I was making this dip the other day, I needed to roast an entire head of garlic. I also needed to take a nap. I knew that if I didn't roast the garlic before I took a nap, I would forget to roast the garlic. I also knew I was tired enough that I knew as soon as I sat down I would fall asleep and wake up to the lovely fragrance of garlic burning. I was in a pickle. That is, until I remembered reading about how you can roast garlic in the crock pot!

This process is basically the same as baking potatoes in the slow cooker. All you have to do is chop of a bit of the top of the garlic bulb. You just want a little bit of the tops of the garlic bulbs showing. Then you drizzle a bit of olive oil over the bulb and wrap it in foil. Let the little guys hang out in the crockpot on high for 4-5 hours, while you take a nap, do some laundry, check your email, get dinner ready, etc.

I don't know if I would do this every time I wanted to roast garlic. Spread on a cracker, the garlic didn't have as much of a nutty, sweet flavor as it would if it were prepared oven. Mrblocko said he couldn't tell the difference though. I couldn't tell the difference once the garlic was in the dip or spaghetti sauce.

I'll still use the slow cooker method for roasting garlic when I don't want to babysit the oven or if I don't have plans to turn the oven on, save for that single clove of garlic. If I'm already roasting other veggies/meat, or if I plan to use the garlic as a jam-like spread on bread, I'll use the traditional oven roasted method. It is nice to have the option for either.