Originally Posted by
dang
This might seem odd, but I've taken to zapping garlic in the microwave for lots of applications. Mice a couple of cloves of garlic; add to a ramekin with olive oil; and nuke the oil for a minute. The garlic should look and smell cooked (but not singed at all), and if it doesn't, hit it again. Just run the oil through a strainer and you have a lot more lee-way with heat in the pan if you are cooking. For pesto, obviously you don't want to cook the basil, but you can add both the oil and the cooked garlic to the pesto before serving. And for a dish in the saute pan, you can toss in the garlic late in the game.
And yeah, I'd be careful about chopped garlic in jars sitting around.