Garlic Bread

This is a recipe that was handed down to me by my Italian roommate.  The first time she made it for us in college was the moment when I fell in love with garlic.  Never again would I use garlic powder or garlic salt.  I love chunks of garlic in my sauces and spreads, yet I'm not quite on my friend's level - she used to roast heads of garlic and eat the cloves!  I don't think I could handle that much garlic, and I'm not sure if people would be able to handle talking to me after eating that much garlic.

For this bread, there's a key way to prepare the butter spread.  Put the garlic in your food processor to mince the garlic finely, then add in the butter to infuse the garlic flavor into your spread.  Plus, creaming the butter makes it much easier to slather all over your bread!

There are two ways you can bake your garlic bread: the low and slow way, and the "Can we have garlic bread with dinner even though we're serving dinner now?" way.

The former will be outlined below, since that is the best way to release all of the flavors of the garlic and cook it so it's nice and tender.  The other way to do it is to stick it under the broiler for about 2 minutes, but this way won't give you the best results, just the quickest.  Make sure that if you do it this way, you leave the door open a crack so the oven doesn't get too hot under the broiler setting.

This lavish loaf of garlic bread would be perfect alongside a dish of chicken parmesan.  Be sure to make it with your next Italian dinner!

Garlic Bread

Yield: 1 loaf

Prep Time: 5 min

Cook Time: 15 min

Ingredients

- 3 – 5 cloves garlic

- 1 stick butter, room temperature 

- 1 loaf thick, Italian bread

- Parmesan cheese and Italian herb seasoning if desired

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F

Place the garlic cloves and butter in your food processor and pulse until the garlic is minced and the butter is creamy. 

Cut the loaf in half and spread the garlic butter on both sides of the loaf.  Close the bread up again and wrap the bread in tinfoil.  Place the bread in the oven for about 10 minutes so the garlic becomes tender.  Remove from oven, unwrap from tinfoil, and open up the garlic bread so it lies flat.  Sprinkle cheese and herb seasoning on inside of bread and allow to toast for about 5 minutes.  Remove from oven and serve immediately. 

Posted by Ali B at 9:03 PM