Easy Garlic Bread From Scratch

I promised you two recipes, here's the first.

This is the easiest garlic bread short of buying it from the freezer section. We've all tasted it, we know the freezer box garlic bread is good, but who doesn't want to just absolutely WOW friends at the dinner party? Besides, this is super easy and completely worth it. I got this from Food.com AND they have a feature that allows you to adjust the portion depending on how much you want to make. I only made one loaf of the artisan bread and that required no refrigeration, but you can use that website to go about it however you like.

Here's What I Did:

3/4 cup lukewarm water
3/8 tablespoon granulated yeast (2 packets)
3/8 tablespoon kosher salt or 3/8 tablespoon other coarse salt
1 5/8 cups flour, unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose (not strong)


I combined it all in my mixer with the dough hook attachment. If you don't have a KitchenAid stand mixer, my heart aches for you. But you can still do this by hand. My instructions include the mixer.

Add the yeast, warm water (straight from the sink worked for me), and salt. Let that sit for about 10 minutes which allows the yeast to work its magic, then add the flour. All at once, then set that mixer to 2 until the dough pulls from the side. 

When you get the dough off the hook, it should look like this. **PRO TIP coat your hands in flour, it keeps the dough from sticking to your fingers.** 

Next, roll that dough into a little ball. You'll want to cover the bowl for about two hours and let it set on the counter to rise. Go check the mail, run errands, handle business, let the dough be. 

Once the dough has risen in size, coat it in flour. I let that sit for a minute as I greased up the pan. The recipe didn't call for it, but it seemed like a good idea. 

Grease up that pan all nice and oily like...

Then manipulate that little ball into a long loaf. It looks tiny now but never fear, my dear, it shall rise. 

Now, this seems silly, but it works. Put that oven to 425 and add a broiler pan (or cake pan) full of water. Trust me, the steam keeps that bread nice and moist. 

As the oven heats, let that dough rise a little more. Coat it in olive oil and cut some slits in it. Mine weren't deep enough, but it made for a crispier crust. Then throw that baby in the oven! The recipe called for 30mins, but my oven only needed 25 and it got a little too brown.

Voila! Artisan bread.

Let it rest, my darling. Now, you could stop here and make a killer BLT... but I'm trying to impress dinner party friends with an Italian menu sooo...

I cut that hunky loaf into baguettes, or bites, or whatever you choose to call them. I covered them in butter and garlic salt, toasted them, then this is what happened...

For the love of all things joyful and true, this was some tasty garlic bread! BOOM!

And there you have it folks, tasty, easy, quick garlic bread. Or just sandwich bread. But my Lawd it was delicious!

Meal Planning, Time Saving

King Hubs of the Ingle Castle has been asking me to blog again about my meal planning system. We've recently started a one week instead of two week menu. As you remember, we were eating a different meal every night for two weeks, rinse and repeat. Well now we have a repeating menu every week. Bland as it may be, we're trying to save up to buy a home, so every Monday night pizza night and Tuesday night casserole is worth it.

Now for the meal planning part. Make your menu first. Mine looks like this: 

Monday--Pizza night (also board game night with brother in law and friends)

Tuesday --Poppyseed chicken (which can be made in advance and refrigerated or frozen until you're ready       to cook.This is my night class special)

Wednesday--Taco Roll (easy enough for the hubs to make since I have classes late.)

Thursday--Chicken, rice, peas. 

Friday--Meatloaf (in the crockpot. Cooks while I do my research, writing and errands and is amazing. Served with any of the veggies that Hubs's grandparents send us fresh from their garden.)

Saturday--Sandwiches or out for lunch. (Common time for the hubby and I to share a romantic lunch.) Supper is hamburgers (unless we have a dinner party or plans.)

Sunday--Lasagna for lunch. (Stouffers. Don't judge me, its better than any lasagna I'll ever make. And cheap. For 2.65 it feeds me and the Hubbers.) Chicken fried rice made at home for supper. 

Then make your grocery list to correspond. Be on the lookout for meat deals like the Pick 5 for 19.99 deal at some grocery stores. I save a ton of money doing that. 

I highly recommend planning your meals around your schedule. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays I do something easy that the hubs can make or a casserole that I can prepare in advance and bake when I get home. For crockpot recipes, check out these ladies. I use a lot of their recipes to get inspiration for new things or just to wow people when I have company ;)

With love as always, 

Courtney 

Strategy Saturday!

We have all been there... it's a random night of the week, your budget is blown, you're starving to death and you have no idea what to cook. You'd make hamburgers but you only have the family pack of meat, the rest will suffer freezer burn and you're fighting to figure out what to eat before just throwing in the towel and heading for the closest drive-thru Choke-n-Barf. Have we already mentioned the weirdo smell coming from the fridge? Yea, there's a smell... and it smells suspiciously of last week's tilapia surprise. You're stressed, you're tired, you're frazzled--yup, this sucks. So how do we prevent this? 

I call it Strategy Saturday. In the Ingle house, I pop out of bed around 7:30am (that's late for us), grab my calendar and notepad and kickstart the strategy for the week. What am I planning? MEALS. That was our smelly, frazzled, starving, sucky weeknights happen fewer and further between.

I remember the days living at home. I'd wake up on a Saturday and find Mama at the table, a notebook, cookbooks, and a hand drawn days of the week calendar. I didn't realize until I got married how important that Strategy Saturday would be.

You can take control of your busy Tuesday on Saturday, all by planning your meals accordingly. Here's how:

First, either grab a calendar or list the days of the week. I shop for two weeks, so I set aside the next two weeks on the calendar. Sit down and plan every supper for two weeks. Once you've done that, make your grocery list around the meals. This is meal planning, folks... and it saves you time and anxiety.

Remember to consider your schedule when you plan meals. I have a late afternoon class on Monday, a night class on Tuesday, a late afternoon class on Wednesday and work every day of the week. So my meal planning looks like this:

Monday- Poppyseed Chicken

Tuesday- Crockpot Meatloaf

Wednesday-Chicken Fried Rice

Thursday-Date Night!

Friday-Pork Steak

And you get the point...

This will save you time, money, and frustration. Once you've made your menu and grocery list, shop accordingly. When you get home, plan accordingly. Casseroles can be put together a day in advance and refrigerated until you're ready to cook. Crockpot recipes cook while you're at work. Sounds easy, right? I'm not the only one.. I promise this works! Check out what blogger Jen Jones does for meal planning and more. Once the shopping and meal planning are done, clean house! And I mean, really clean. Throw away the tilapia surprise from the fridge, sweep, mop, CLEAN. That way this week you can relax for once because you deserve it!

Tackle it, Super Spouses. Welcome to Strategy Saturday!

Courtney