Over the past few months we have made spaghetti or some sort of pasta dish that ‘requires’ garlic bread to be served as well.  We typically open our freezer to a box of Garlic Texas Toast, which is done purely out of habit.

In our quest to eat less preservatives, we decided that it was time to make our own garlic bread. (Plus, we were out of the boxed version.) Luckily we had a fresh loaf of French Bread made from our local bakery on hand.

It was actually quite easy to figure out what ingredients to add to the butter to make it taste even better than store bought version. It took less than 3 minutes to combine them and within 10 minutes we had fresh garlic bread on our plates.  No more hard crust to give to Jazzy (our dog).  Every bite had that perfect amount of crispness, coupled with the mouth watering garlic butter flavor with just a slight hint of Parmesan cheese.  Move over Texas Toast —it’s only homemade garlic bread from now on!

Easy Homemade Garlic Bread

Ingredients:
1 fresh roll of French, baguette, or Italian bread
1 stick salted butter, at room temperature
4 teaspoons finely minced garlic
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons chopped parsley
1/2 teaspoon olive oil
2 teaspoons parmesan cheese (Optional)

Instructions:

*Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

1. Cut bread in half lengthwise through the center. Set aside

2. In a medium sized bowl, add butter, minced garlic, garlic powder, parsley, olive oil and parmesan cheese. Mix with a fork until well combined.

3. Spread garlic butter mixture on each half of bread. Don’t be bashful – you should use the full amount.

4. Bake bread for 10-14 minutes or until bread is crisp and top is a light golden brown.

**If you want to brown the top even more, turn your broiler on for 1-2 minutes but watch carefully so your bread doesn’t burn.

Cut bread into slices and serve

Enjoy!

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Mary and Jim

[recipe servings=12]

Easy Homemade Garlic Bread

Ingredients:
1 fresh roll of french, bagette, or italian bread (whichever you prefer)
1 stick salted butter, at room temperature
4 teaspoons finely minced garlic
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons chopped parsley
1/2 teaspoon olive oil
2 teaspoons parmesan cheese (Optional)

Instructions:

*Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

1. Cut bread in half lengthwise through the center. Set aside

2. In a medium sized bowl, add butter, minced garlic, garlic powder, parsley, olive oil and parmesan cheese. Mix with a fork until well combined.

3. Spread garlic butter mixture on each half of bread. Don’t be bashful – you should use the full amount.

4. Bake bread for 10-14 minutes or until bread is crisp and top is a light golden brown.

**If you want to brown the top even more, turn your broiler on for 1-2 minutes but watch carefully so your bread doesn’t burn.

Cut bread into slices and serve

recipe courtesy of Old World Garden   www.owgarden.com

[/recipe]