I love to cook, but certain jobs are just tedious.  Take mincing garlic for example.  It’s easy enough to chop, but mince those tiny cloves, when I need a lot?  I never end up with minced pieces the same size.

So I came up with a kitchen hack that works great. And since I have two kinds of arthritis, it’s easy to do.

I grate them with a micro-plane grater.

A micro-plane grater does it in a few seconds.  You just have to be careful of your finger tips, as these things are really sharp.

The graters come in different sizes and styles.  Many are made for zesting , but I prefer one with slightly larger holes, made for cheese grating .

Using a grater also provides a great way to get garlic flavor, without actual pieces of garlic in your food.  I often find with large cloves it also separates of some of the outer skin.  There are even micro-plane ribbon graters that will  create tiny slices, should you want to show off some garlic (or cheese, or whatever) on top of whatever you are making.

Graters are easy to rinse off and clean, and stow in a drawer until next time.

That’s one garlic clove, grated in a couple seconds.

Why do this?  I recently made a soup recipe called Immunity Soup.  It called for lots of vegetables, chicken breast and 10 cloves of minced garlic.

Yep 10 cloves.

No way I was mincing 10 cloves of garlic, but by using a micro-plane grater, it took me only a few seconds.  You might find this to be useful next time you have several cloves of garlic to contend with. Or when you would like the garlic to melt into the dish rather than have any pieces show up.

Want the recipe for the Immunity Soup? Sure, just let me know.  And tell me how you use a micro-plane grater.