Kitchen Fails: Garlic Press, I Curse You

So that Jamie Oliver cookbook I won has some pretty intense opinions about the types of things I should have in my kitchen. Admittedly, he is trying to give 15 minute recipes and is super up-front about the fact that if you don't have all the gadgets you will not be able to do it in that amount of time. Still, I think that requiring an immersion blender, a regular blender AND a food processor is a bit much. I'm still super pleased that I have a blender at all, but I got that mainly for smoothies (mmmm, smoothies).

But! I do in fact have a garlic press. I even managed to find a nice heavy metal one at a garage or estate sale or some such. And garlic always takes forever to peel and chop, so hey, just putting it into the garlic press with the skin on sounds sort of amazing. I'm game. Let's do that time saving thing!

Now, I'd had mixed results with the garlic press before, but I hadn't left the skin on, and maybe I hadn't committed to it properly? Surely it can't have gone as poorly as I remember it going. Time saving! Do this thing! Yay!

Did you know that garlic juice burns? I do now. And I don't mean in the frying pan. I don't know if it is me, the press, or some type of horrible cosmic cooking justice, but I sent garlic juice flying EVERYWHERE, and every drop that splashed onto my arms was like a tiny horrible acid burn (which makes sense, I bet garlic juice is acidic. Probably what makes them so delicious! mmm.). My hands were slippery, the press was fighting me, and there was horrible acidic garlic debris all up my arms. And I still had four cloves to go. And since you are supposed to just press the garlic right into the pan, the garlic needed to be added NOW and I didn't have time to stop and just chop it. Also my partner was "helpfully" mentioning that the garlic that had made it into the pan was beginning to burn in the more traditional cooking disaster sense.

Garlic Press, I curse you. I am also pretty sure this is the second time I have attacked myself with this garlic press. Which means if I don't get rid of it I will, in a couple of months, give it another go. I can tell you now, it probably won't go any better.

But you can totally leave the skin on when pressing the cloves. That was cool.