I just made this amazing shrimp and brown rice rotini salad with a pesto sauce (minus the Parmesan, due to being mostly dairy-free, and minus the pine nuts, because I didn't have any). It is sooooo good. I had to make myself stop eating it. I used fresh basil from the yard, [homemade] garlic oil, and a few cloves of the garlic from the oil, and still can't figure out why boiled garlic tastes of cheese. It's weird, but it's yummy.
For those days when you want a quick dash of garlicky flavor for...well, whatever, I give you garlic oil:
Garlic Oil
You need:
roughly equal amounts of garlic cloves and olive oil. (Get a couple of large heads of garlic and do a whole bunch at once--it keeps for ages in the fridge and then you can get the oil to cover the garlic in the saucepan).
You do:
Peel the garlic.
Put in small saucepan.
Add the oil.
Heat to a simmer and keep it there for about 20 minutes.
Remove from heat.
Cool.
Pour into jar(s) (leave the garlic in the oil).
Store in fridge.
This is great in dressings, in stir-fries, in pesto (if you don't want the bite of raw garlic), or anywhere you would be using cooked garlic for something. Use just the oil, just the garlic, or both, depending on what you need. Yum.
And if you know why it tastes cheesy, tell me! :-)