In their ultimate wisdom, my local supermarket has decided to sell garlic not by single bulb (as it should be), not three bulbs in a net (as it was until now), but by five bulbs at a time. Of course the shop presents this as an improvement, since the price per bulb went down, ignoring the fact that instead of 2, I have to throw away 4 bulbs, but that rant is for another thread.
Fact is, even though I love garlic, I just can't eat 5 bulbs before they start to sprout and/or go bad. I have tried to grate them and put them in a sealed pot, salted and oiled, but that garlic paste went green within days.
Am I the only one with this problem? What do you do with all that garlic?

I hesitate to say this, my first thought, as you wlll end up with lots more garlic, but if you split them into cloves, each one will grow a new garlic bulb, that's if you have a garden or a pot or two for growing? You could then sell them at work or give them to deserving friends!
That's not what you really want is it? Well I don't usually copy stuff from the net, but I found this really useful thread. See what you think
Garlic storage

Using up garlic if you're cooking for one can be a bit of problem, I'll admit.

But there are oodles of recipes out there that call for anywhere between 20 and 40 (with 40 the more popular) cloves of garlic. The "usual" one is with chicken, but it works with any meat that is roasted (beef or lamb for instance) or baked (shrimp etc). And you'd honestly never know there were THAT many cloves, because garlic takes on a sort of sweeter nutty flavour when it's done in the oven as opposed to raw or panfried. Instead of stuffing a bird with spiced bread cubes, try several cloves of garlic, a couple of celery stalks or so cut in large pieces, onion cut in chunks, salt, pepper and glob of butter. VERY flavourful, not to mention that because there is still "room" left in the cavity, you know the INside of the buzzard is actually cooked as well (I always make a pan of traditional dressing in a separate baking pan, I never serve what came OUT of the bird. Your mileage may vary.).

Coming from a farm family (back in the days before you could buy everything under the sun in grocery stores), we did a lot of pickling/preserving. At that time of the year, there was no such thing as "too much garlic" lol.

I use 2 or 3 LARGE bulbs of garlic when I make a single batch of home-made salsa after enough tomatoes have ripened in the garden (yes there will be some to give away to a few friends/co-workers).

I know people who make their own herbal oils and fry oils, but because raw garlic is used (and obviously, no pressure cooking is involved), they honestly don't keep all that well, even in the refrigerator for more than two weeks after the "infusion" time. However, you can ROAST a few garlic bulbs, then squeeze out the insides into a sterilised small baby food glass jar that will keep a little longer. Alternatively you can freeze the roasted pulp in those little jewelry sized zip bags (or ice cube trays) and take one out as you need it to make garlic butter or add to homemade pesto, hummus, spaghetti sauce or whatever. I do not recommend freezing raw garlic.

If you make your own flavoured vinegar you run less risk of botulism than with flavoured oils. Even though garlic has natural antibiotic/antiseptic properties, it can still happen if you're not completely diligent.

Garlic Wild Mushroom soup is delicious (in fact, I'm craving some right now lol).

Garlic needs to be kept in a cool dry place. A root cellar/cupboard in the basement environment would be best. If you don't have one, then PLEASE don't store it in the fridge drawer next to your lettuce LOL. If you grow your own, do NOT wash it after digging it up (unless you're using it immediately) - you're just inviting bacteria to grow. Assuming your garlic is merely "sprouting" and not rotting, the new green part is tasty chopped as a garnish or salad ingredient (as are all members of the allium family). Generally though, after two months, the bulbs lose their potency and often become woody, brownish and unpalatable, so if you're not freezing/pickling, then just add them to the compost pile (sometimes there's a "good side" to throwing things out lol).

Fresh garlic also has many medicinal uses you might want to check into.

Thanks for the tips, it looks harder than I thought. I wonder how they make those little pots of garlic paste then. Maybe I should start growing my own, at least I can decide for myself how many bulbs to harvest.

I agree with roasting whole bulbs - the flavour is much milder, and you just squeeze the cooked garlic out.

If you have more bulbs than you need simply split them into cloves, peel them and then freeze them. If they have started to sprout, as they will at certain times of the year, plant them.

I can buy single bulbs but I still don't end up using the whole thing. Unless what I'm making really demands fresh garlic, I just use the refrigerated minced garlic in a jar. It's one case where I really find it just as good as fresh if it's going to be cooked in a stir fry or in a pasta sauce or something, and it keeps a very long time

I have a ceramic container for garlic and shallots and it seems to prevent it from sprouting.

In the South of France, they hang the tress in the storage room or pantry area of the house if they have one. Never saw it sprout like that!

Oh, if all else fails...you can try this remedy for a cough. You take garlic and crush it and then boil it in milk, add honey and pass it through muslin cloth and drink it. It chases away a cough sometimes.