Challenge 37: Garlic - Garlic Ciabatta Toasts

[norfolkian]

This was a good challenge this week considering both my husband and I have had colds. I decided to have a go at some garlic bread, as I've never actually done a homemade version before (the bread is not homemade, but you know what I mean...).

This serves roughly two people.

Ingredients
1 small-ish ciabatta loaf 
About 25g butter
4 cloves garlic, peeled and either chopped finely or crushed with a garlic press
1/2 tsp of mixed dried herbs

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 220C. Slice the ciabatta into chunks. Mix the butter, garlic and dried herbs together. You can soften the butter a little if you like to make this easier. I just kind of smooshed it together. Spread the garlic butter mixture on the slices of ciabatta. Bake for 5 - 7 minutes until brown. Eat.

CHALLENGE #37: Everything Chicken with Roasted Garlic

[moetushie]

This is isn't really a recipe, since I have no method behind it. I just needed to meal prep for the coming week and had some bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts defrosting in the fridge. I took off the skin, cranked up the oven to 400 F (all the recipes online seem to require you go higher if you want roasted chicken, but I'm too much of a nervous nelly for that. I'm OK with it taking 30 minutes rather than 20!)

On a rimmed baking sheet that I covered with foil (for easier clean up), I plunked down the prepared chicken breasts and seasoned according to whim and whatever was closest to hand. Finish off with some oil of your choice. (I used canola since it was what I had on hand, and I worry about using EVOO at higher temps.) For the purposes of this challenge, what I picked was Trader Joe's Everything But the Bagel Seasoning, which I like to put into, well, everything. It's a combo of black sesame seeds, poppy seeds, sea salt, onion flakes and minced garlic but for me, I taste the garlic over everything else. It's like crunchy garlic seasoning, with other stuff. I love it. (Everything bagels doesn't make much of an impression on me -- I like my bagels either plain or encrusted with cheese, but that's neither here nor there.)

Along with the chicken, plunk down an head of garlic on to the foil (I put in the side and sort of crumpled the foil together so it stood upright) -- pour maybe a teaspoon of oil on top to help with the roasting.

Bake chicken and garlic until chicken temperature reads as 165 F-- it took approximately 35 minutes in my oven.

( Picture of final product )