I always take the germ out whenever I use raw garlic. I find it tames the pungency somewhat. You could also blanch it or pickle it (if you had more time). Maybe even chopping it up and and putting it in a little acid for a few minutes.

Others probably have some interesting ideas, but if you have leftover ingredients why not just make another small batch w/ no garlic and mix the two together?

@ HeyYoRachele - so simple and elegant, I totally missed it!

I very rarely use raw garlic, and opt for the roasted, chopped, jarred option at the market.

I believe that you can leave the pesto in the fridge over night so that the garlic can mellow. At least, that's what the recipe for Anasazi beans and rice with garlic sauce featured on here last week recommended.

Chop the garlic finely, then soak it in lemon juice for about 10 min. I always use this step when making hummus.

If you remove any green in the garlic before you chop it, you will rid yourself of much of the bitterness. The green "germ" is the garlic trying to sprout and not appetizing.

If you are willing to cook the garlic a bit, simmer it in oil or roasting it will sweeten the garlic and take away much of the pungency. You could also slice the garlic very thin and then pan roast in a little oil until pungent, then cool and chop for addition to any dish as normal.

Cook the pesto briefly. That will cook the garlic and mellow it out.

I agree with jlvr2. Cooking a pesto will mellow the garlic. It will probably darken the greens too, but it will definitely get rid of some of the sharpness of the garlic.

I volunteer to eat your too-garlicky pesto for you. Mmmmmmmm garlic!

I believe conventional wisdom is that milk/cream/dairy offsets and mellows the "garlicky" flavor, which is why you often see recipes that are "garlic cream sauce." Could you somehow incorporate dairy?

Also, AT, nice 90-degree rotation of yesterday's "winter greens pesto" photo. :o]

In my experience freezing peeled garlic cloves mellows the flavor a great deal.

I buy bulk peeled garlic cloves and put them in vacuum bags, then doubled bagged in Ziploc freezer bags so the garlic aroma doesn't permeate my freezer. Then, when I need 1 or 2 cloves I can grab them out of the freezer.

Blanch the garlic briefly in boiling water first - 10-20 sec for a peeled clove should do it. It will mellow the flavor without having to cook the entire batch of pesto.

Have you tried garlic flower in oil? It's made of the unopened bud and stem and has a milder flavour than the bulb. I use it with salmon. You can buy it in a jar.

Cut each clove in half, remove the germ completely, dice the remaining clove as usual. It'll dial the flavor back, but not much. The benefit is most of the oils in the clove are in the germ so the garlic breath is far shorter with cloves removed than with whole cloves.