For years I used to love the baguette version of garlic bread you could buy frozen from a supermarket, then you heat it up in then oven, but I think I ate too much and now I can’t stand it! So a few years ago my wonderful girlfriend started making homemade garlic bread, which is easy to prepare.

two slices of homemade garlic bread

It is important to note you don’t need posh bread to make this. We regularly use normal white sliced bread, but also at times will use homemade bread or whatever we like at the time from a bakery. The bread in the photos was a cheap Tesco’s white crusty bread mix I made the day before.

Note: Children require the help and supervision of an adult to make this dish / recipe.

Ingredients for four slices:

• Garlic granules (half a teaspoon)
• Mixed herbs (half a teaspoon)
• Butter / Spread (an over generous tablespoon helping)
• Four slices of bread

Step 1 – Prepare the garlic butter.

All you need to do is take half a teaspoon of garlic granules, then half a teaspoon of mixed herbs and place them in a bowl.

garlic granules and mixed herbs

We use different butters / spreads, this time it was a Tesco’s ‘Totally Butterly Spread’, but whatever you use take a really generous helping with a tablespoon.

Tesco Totally Butterly Spread

Then mix the butter / spread in with the garlic and herbs.

garlic butter with mixed herbs

Step 2 – Put the garlic butter onto the bread.

Take your slices of bread, in this case it was four chunky slices of homemade bread and spread the garlic butter thickly over the bread.

Step 3 – Grill until ready.

Then place the bread onto the grill and cook until ready, which won’t take long.

ready to be grilled

Et voilà!

homemade garlic bread

Serving suggestions

Homemade garlic bread goes with a mixture of dishes, from accompany italian food, to eating with jacket potato and salads, else with other dishes. It is cheap to make and in my humble opinion is superior to shop brought versions.

I have grown wary of many shop brought drinks, as often there is too much going on flavour wise, or too many ingredients that I would rather avoid. Sometimes I just want a basic refreshing fruit tea, but baring cost in mind. Many people are happy to pay a premium for a packet fruit tea drink, which I used to, but I now avoid more often. So I set out to try a few different fruits, that were just sliced and had hot water to accompany – simple and cheap.

sliced orange

I wasn’t going to squeeze whole oranges into a mug for a stronger flavour. I wanted to see what would generate a reasonable flavour when sliced and stewed. I kept it simple and tried grapefruit, lemon and orange.

sliced grapefruit

Not surprisingly the lemon won, but I thought the grapefruit might actually provide more flavour, but alas no.  The orange if stewed hardly provided any flavour, which wasn’t a surprise at all.

lemons

So I just ate the grapefruit and oranges, and stuck with sliced lemon. All you have to do is wash the lemon, slice it and then place two or three slices in a mug, and pour the hot water. In five minutes you have a refreshing fruit tea drink, which is stronger than you might think.

homemade lemon tea

In the comments it would be great to read about your ‘cheap’ homemade drinks.

Sometimes there is nothing better than making cheese on toast, but I prefer making a posh version, that requires a bit more effort, but is worth it and makes a great dinner. In the UK we don’t call this dish ‘grilled cheese on toast’, just ‘cheese on toast’. So here is how to make cheese on toast …. the posh way.

cheese on toast

Note: Children require help and supervision from an adult, as knives and using the grill are involved in making this meal.

Ingredients:

• cheddar cheese (I use grated)
• bread loaf (I make a homemade loaf)
• tomatoes
• spring onions

Step 1 – Wash the tomatoes and spring onions, and then slice.

I washed the tomatoes and spring onions. I then chopped off both ends of the spring onions, and disposed of quite a bit of the green ends of the spring onion, but it is personal preference. I then thinly sliced the tomatoes.

spring onions and tomatoes

Step 2 – Prepare and toast the bread.

Of course you can just use loaf of bread already sliced, but I decided to make two small wholemeal loaves of bread the previous day. I cut one of the loaves using a bread knife and grilled lightly.

homemade wholemeal loaf of bread

Step 3 – Prepare the cheese and toast.

I placed the grilled toast on a plate, then layered grated cheese on it. I then placed the spring onions and sliced tomatoes on top of the grated cheddar cheese. I do this part on a plate, as grated cheese can easily fall off when putting onto the toast, and that way means I can easily pick up the stray bits of cheese, and put back on the toast. I use grated cheese when possible as it cooks more evenly.

Step 4 – Cook the cheese on toast.

I gently take the cheese on toast off the plate, then place onto a grill tray.

cheese and toast ready to cook

I then cooked the cheese on toast under the grill, until the cheese was melted and some areas were a light brown.

Et voilà!

Serving suggestions

People tend to eat cheese on toast for a lunch, but putting more effort into making cheese and toast, plus with a salad, means it can be a lovely dinner.

grilled cheese on toast

Pickled onions go quite well with cheese and toast, as do mustards and tomato sauce.

This is a recipe on how to make chocolate rice crispy cakes. They are easy to make, but also very ‘morish’ and I have to resist eating too many, too quickly! This is how my wonderful girlfriend makes the cakes.

chocolate rice crispy cakes in a tray

Note: Children require help and supervision by an adult to makes these cakes, as it involves cooking on the hob and boiling water.

Ingredients:

• 300g milk chocolate flavoured cake covering (cooking chocolate)
• Approx 188g Rice Crispies / Snaps (188g was approx half a box of Tesco’s rice snaps)

milk chocolate cake covering

Additionally:

You will need paper cases, a big glass bowl, heatproof surface, saucepan not larger than the bowl (but the bowl able to safely sit in the saucepan), a wooden spoon and bun tin. Plus you need oven gloves or heatproof mittens.

paper cases

Step 1 – Melt the chocolate.

Poor hot water into a quarter of the saucepan and then put on the hob, using a low heat.

water in saucepan

Place the glass bowl onto the saucepan, making sure the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl, then break up the chocolate and place into the bowl. The steam from the saucepan will gently melt the chocolate. You do not want to have your chocolate bubbling.

melting the chocolate

You need to continuously stir the chocolate as you don’t want to burn it. Once the chocolate is melted, turn the hob off. Now using a pair of heatproof mittens place the bowl onto a heatproof surface.

Step 2 – Mix in the rice crispies / snaps.

Now you need to slowly pour in the rice crispies / snaps in stages, making sure not to crush them and to evenly coat them in chocolate.

mixing in the rice crispies / snaps

Okay you probably will crush some, but take it slowly and you should be okay.

Step 3 – Place the mix into the paper cases.

Place the paper cases into their slots in a bun tin. Then using the wooden spoon fill each case with the chocolate rice crispy / snaps mixture.

chocolate rice crispy cakes in bun tin

Step 4 – Put in the fridge to set.

Now you can put the chocolate rice cripsy cakes into the fridge to set.

Et voilà!

Further information.

Once they have set we transfer them into a plastic sealed container and store in the fridge.

chocolate rice crispy cakes

They are lovely cold and are great accompanying a mug of tea!