March Can Jam: Alliums?

Oh boy, the March Can Jam was Alliums. Really? Sounds like the perfect time to start pickling. And my favorite book exchage: PaperBack Swap just coughed up a new canning book:

Preserving Summer's Bounty: A Quick and Easy Guide to Freezing, Canning, and Preserving, and Drying What You Grow by Rodale Food Center

Luckily, this included an easy enough recipe for pickled garlic.  The criteria for this month's winning recipe were: (1) easy; (2) not too many extra trips or new equipment; and (3) not to weird tasting.  Because, you see, after the $90 and 90 miles that went into the lemon "jelly" for the January citrus debacle that ultimately made it to the trash and after the little too creative carrot butter that tasted to much like carrots for anyone in the house really want to put on toast for the February carrot fiasco, my enthusiasm is waning. It may be that my project motivations are seasonal.  I love canning in season, but then there are piles of lovely fresh things that need to be saved from certain doom if I don't can them.  Not piles of stuff that I have to buy special for the occasion from places like Costco (organic carrots from some huge corporate organic conglomerate because the only local veggies I could find in February are winter squash and greens) or Whole Foods (organic garlic from who knows where that was hard to peal and half spotted because my own hoarded supply from last fall is almost gone).  With great relief, I note that our regions' early spring farmers markets start up tomorrow, that spring is starting to show, and in the end, how can more garlic on the pantry shelves be a bad thing? .