TLDR: This garlic cheesy bread makes me as excited as bacon does. Serve it with spaghetti… or really any American meal, or just enjoy it on its own. Seriously it’s so easy and so tasty!! The key secret ingredient is mayonnaise. It pulls everything together and adds that extra something that makes this spread next-level!
I loved high school. I loved my friends, playing sports, and being a part of clubs and projects. It was the best when friends and sports merged together, which is one of the reasons I loved being part of the cross country team. I had initially joined to build up endurance for basketball, but it quickly became a hobby of mine in its own right. I’m pretty sure it was that freshman year of cross country when I first tried Chris’s mom’s amazing garlic cheesy bread, and it wouldn’t be the last.
Chris was my first boyfriend, and a great friend for years after that. His mom was the quintessential soccer mom. She brought snacks and treats and smiles and hugs and even gave me rides to many of the Saturday cross country invitationals, her face always bright with energy while I stumbled towards her minivan in the dark, early hours before sunrise. When I try to imagine what it will look like to be a cool mom ten years from now, I imagine being like her: full of snacks, full of smiles, and full of this CHEESY BREAD! It must have been at one of our pre-race carb-loading dinners that I had my first taste. I was hooked.
This cheesy bread was one of her specialties. We could smell it the moment we walked into their home, and would drool when it came out of the oven, hot and bubbly. Whenever Chris brought it for a potluck, it was polished off before anything else. I remember asking her for the recipe, but the only information I managed to catch was that it had mayonnaise in it. Huh. Mayonnaise. Who would have thought?? Turns out this was the KEY ingredient, and the most important piece of information I would need.
Finally, several years ago, I decided I needed to crack the code on this cheesy bread. I tinkered with basically everything tasty/unhealthy that made sense to me, and after rounds of experimenting, this was the result: Cheese, butter, mayonnaise, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. It is so easy, and it is so good. Honestly, I have no idea if it tastes anything like Chris’s mom’s actually does, but it lives up to the memory of it, and that’s something.
Nowadays, this cheesy bread makes a regular appearance at our house. The kids and I are bacon-level excited about it when it is placed on the table, and I have learned to make more than I think we need because it always gets gobbled up. It’s a crispy, savory, melty, cheesy, garlicy, tasty cheese toast– what’s not to love? Plus, you probably already have most of the ingredients for it.
Do you use fresh garlic?
I usually like to add fresh minced garlic, but we didn’t have any on hand today, so I did without. And it was perfectly fine. No one missed anything. But if you have it, use it! There’s nothing like the smell of fresh garlic and cheese and butter filling up the corners of your home 🙂 Mmmm!
What kind of bread works best?
I make it on Acme’s Italian batard whenever possible, but you can use any crusty loaf, like a good French bread or sourdough. If you have an oblong loaf, you can also simply cut it in half lengthwise and spread each half with the spread, like Costco’s garlic bread. This would probably be healthier. But I enjoy a greater ratio of melty cheese spread to bread, and I like the crisped edges all around, so I do slices.
If you have humongous slices of bread (like middle slices from a big round sourdough), then cut each slice in half before spreading, otherwise the very middle will get soggy.
These soy-glazed chicken wings are a dish from Ben’s childhood that really live up to the memories. His mom makes it almost every time we go over for dinner, and it’s a tasty treat that is gobbled up in minutes every single time. Everybody loves it. For years, I kept asking her for her recipe and method, and she didn’t have a recipe, but insisted it was really simple- just simmer the down the wings in a soy sauce mixture with Chinese rock sugar. That was it.
I tried to recreate it a few times, following various recipes I found online for proportions, but always ended up with something that came out beige-ish and tasting like boiled chicken wings… with some soy sauce. They did not hit the spot. Last time we had dinner at her place, I asked again for her method, determined to figure this recipe out. She must have known I would ask, and smiled as she pulled out a bag of rock sugar she had set aside just for me.
How did she know I still hadn’t actually tried it with rock sugar? (I have like 25 lbs of white and brown sugar already at home- it’s hard to justify buying more haha). Well, she was right, and guys: IT MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE. It had that extra special flavor and gave that extra syrupy sheen that was missing before.
But I didn’t know that until I went home and decided to just kind of wing it (har har) instead of using an online recipe. I made two other adjustments this time, increasing the amount of soy sauce and keeping the wings in one single layer in the pan. I used my potsticker method: pan-frying for a bit, then adding liquid (sauce instead of water though) and letting them simmer down until almost all the liquid evaporated. I guess that’s kind of like braising?
Anyway, they turned out AMAZING. The wings had a rich, glossy sauce and were finger-licking DELICIOUS. I am happy to say that we have a new easy weeknight go-to chicken recipe to add to the mix! Try these, and maybe you will, too!
Oh man, it’s January 10, and I think I forgot to say HAPPY NEW YEAR last week! HOPE YOU HAD A GREAT ONE! Are you a resolutions kind of person? I always like to set some goals for myself. Even if they don’t last all year, at least I got a good month or two in of self improvement, and that’s better than nothing. This year, I’m working on a few things, including being more flexible and laughing more. I think this will improve the quality of life for both me and my family :D. What about you? I’d love to hear your goals and intentions at the start of the year.
I’ve also got several posts I’m really excited to share with you! They’re the kind that keep me up at night until I finally I pull out my phone and jot down notes so I don’t forget. Unfortunately, my desire to spend hours writing conflicts with my goal to improve at brush lettering which also conflicts with my goal to play more sports (WHICH I’VE BEEN DOING AND IT’S BEEN AWESOME) which conflicts with my goal to study up and learn how to teach my daughter music. Not to mention spending time with Ben, or watching TV or something.
And I think I maybe had friends or fellowship or something at one point in my life… but… there are only so many things I can cram between 8pm and whenever I finally make myself go to bed. Good times! So today I’m buying myself some time by pushing up a recipe that I was planning to post later. If one of your resolutions this year is to eat more healthily, you might want to go ahead and skip this one. The way I remember the ingredients is literally: two types of sugar, two types of sodium, two types of fat, two types of carbs. The only way you can make this less healthy is to add bacon and ice cream to it!
But it’s super delicious and snacky and addictive :D.
My friend Wendy introduced me to the addictive and craveable flavors of this Hurricane Chex Mix, and I am always delighted to get a little tub of it from her. It’s the perfect snacky combination of sweet, salty, and crunchy! I love the Asian take on the Chex Mix since it uses some soy sauce and Furikake, a dry Japanese rice seasoning. I had fun making this snack with my 3-year old as a little packaged gift for family this year.
Last weekend, my friends and I threw a super fun ocean themed baby shower for my friend Kim (and Dan)! Even though I helped to coordinate the event, I actually had to miss it because I came down with the flu :*(. SO SAD. But I am still so proud of how things turned out, and wanted to share some of my favorite ideas from the party!
We had just had our babygirl, and Danny and Akemi were so generous to drive an hour to visit with their baby AND prepare us a delicious Japanese meal! Japanese is our FAVORITE cuisine, so we were ecstatic as we watched them cut and slice and prep their superfresh ingredients in our kitchen. So spoiled, I know!
Surprisingly, one of my favorites of the night was this simple appetizer. I had just never thought to eat tofu uncooked before! The photo above is missing the splash of soy sauce to finish, but otherwise it’s exactly what you see: soft tofu, grated ginger, and green onions. It’s so easy, so bright and refreshing, and lovely to eat!
I’ve made this myself a number of times since, especially on nights where I know I have something fried (like tonkatsu) on the menu. It feels fresh and bright and it’s so simple to prepare– definitely a good one to keep in your back pocket for quick dinner nights!
This one is lookin’ mighty good for an Easter brunch. We’ve actually never had one, since we’re always at a long church service that morning… but if we did, this would be on the menu! Mm-mm. This is GOOD STUFF.
My husband is a lover of all things salmon, and all things egg, so this is right up his alley. He also loves appetizers, so it pretty much makes his day when this is served up! The egg salad is just perfect– slightly creamy, with a hit of mustard and dill, which complements the smoked salmon so nicely. Whether you’re having a brunch or a bridal shower (smoked salmon won’t do for pregnant mommas at a baby shower though), this is a beautiful, perfect little finger food to serve up!
This looked like one of those ideas that would sound good in my head but maybe not actually taste that great in real life:
Yeah… nope. It was good.
I saw it here, but… is it just me, or is there no recipe there?
I mean, the pictures are pretty self-explanatory, but I know I used to be heavily recipe-dependent, so if you’d like a recipe to follow along with, I’ve approximated what I did to make mine! It’s pretty finger-lickin’ delicious.
This would be a great side for a bbq this summer– if you’re gonna get your hands dirty anyway, might as well! It makes for a fun presentation if you’re having friends over, and who can resist some savory garlic bread? Yum!
It’s quite possible that this is the food item that birthed this blog. Dan and Kim were over for a simple lunch of leftovers: butternut squash soup and quesadillas. They enjoyed the soup just fine, but when Daniel bit into his quesadilla–CRUNCH– his eyes opened wide and, through a mouthful of food, he exclaimed, “This is SO GOOD! What did you do to it?! It’s so good!”
I was beaming. Nothing elevates a compliment like someone giving it with their mouth still full of food.
The answer is simple. I gave it a parmesan crust! Mmmmm!! A lot of people seem to like burritos, but I’m a quesadilla girl myself. Quesadillas take the best parts of a burrito (meat, cheese), drop off the less tasty parts (rice, lettuce, beans), and are pan-fried for that delectable crunch! If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll notice that I love crunchy things: crispy skin on chicken, crispy cheese layer on quiches, crispy bacon… I could go on. Adding a parmesan crust does to a quesadilla what a good pan-fry does to a potsticker. You know what, I’ll just let the unfiltered iphone 4s photo convince you:
The Secret to Cooking Crispy Bacon
How fitting, that my first savory post should be about the most savory of them all: bacon. Even the word should get your mouth watering in a way that no dessert ever could. I have been in pursuit of the ultimate bacon-crisping technique for years now. I have pan-fried my bacon. I have baked my bacon, aluminum foil rack and all (which is useful if you’re feeding a crowd). I have even microwaved my bacon, which is okay if you’re in a hurry. However, none of these techniques have yielded the crispy, crunchy, intensely salty bite that I crave.
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