Thwak Biscuits and Garlic Bread

I want to talk to you about bread again. I know, I know you’re thinking “Jeez, Angie. Bread, again? What are you a freaky carbohydrate addict that doesn’t eat anything else?”

Let me think about that for a minute. Hmm, I’d have to say . . . Yes.

O.k., well that’s not entirely true. I do eat some other things. You know, um, pasta and rice, and chicken and you know, other stuff. But I do love my bread.

Today, though, we’re going to talk Garlic Bread. It ~~could~~ should have it’s very own food group, don’t you think?

I want to talk to you specifically about Garlic Skillet Bread. You’ve probably heard of some variation before, you might have heard about Bubble Bread, or Monkey Bread, which is probably a close cousin. (We can definitely talk Monkey Bread another day, I love that stuff, too.)

My experience with Garlic Skillet Bread started during my days with the Pampered Chef. We would use the recipe to demonstrate the greatness of our (not so great) oven-proof cookware. And please don’t get all upset here, I have a LOT of Pampered Chef tools (I just went to a show this week), and I think most of their stuff is very good and very high quality (although a bit overpriced), just at that time the type of pan I was selling was a fair product. They’ve changed over to stainless steel now, which looks really nice and if I had the money to buy it I would probably go ahead and buy it. Maybe.

I digress. Sorry. Yes, back to the bread. When I made Garlic Bread with The Pampered Chef, I used these biscuits for the bread. Which makes a pretty good garlic bread. If you’re in a pinch for time, definitely, I say go for it and use what I lovingly refer to as “Thwak Biscuits” – you know, cuz they go “Thwaaaak” when you open them.

It was fairly simple. You cut the biscuit into quarters. Melt some butter in an oven proof pan, add some garlic, toss in the biscuits, transfer the whole thing to the oven for about 10 minutes and voilà! You pull it out of the oven, tip it over on a plate and garlicky goodness awaits you.

I do like the simplicity of this recipe, and my kids will eat it. Major bonus. My kids really don’t eat anything. Not really. Well, nothing I make, anyhow. But, they do like garlic bread. Most of the time.

Anyhow, once when I wanted to make this recipe I was out of Thwak biscuits, so I made some bread dough in the bread machine. Yeah, it really is easier for me to make bread dough than to drive into to town for a can of .59 cent biscuits. Or maybe it’s not easier. Maybe I’m just lazy. I’ll get back with you on that, right after my nap.

So, make this with thwak biscuits, make it with homemade bread dough, or make it with frozen bread dough (you should defrost it first, though). That works well, too. Whatever you do, just make some. It goes well with the Venetian Apricot Chicken I posted, or any other Italian dinner you might want. I also like to serve it with fish. Not that I’m going to eat the fish . . . maybe that’s why I like to serve it with fish, so I have something to eat! Aha!

Oh, and by the way, did you know that people look at you strangely when you take pictures of food inside the freezer case at the grocery store? I guess I need to learn to be more covert or something. *shrug*

Garlic Skillet Bread

1 pound bread dough or 2 cans biscuit dough, cut into 1 to 2 inch pieces
1/4 cup butter
2 teaspoons of Italian Seasoning
1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Preheat oven to 350F degrees.
In an oven proof skillet, melt butter over medium heat.

Add seasonings and garlic, sprinkle salt over the butter. Sauté briefly.

Remove from heat.
Toss bread or biscuit dough in the pan, turning pieces to coat with butter mixture. Overlapping the pieces is fine.

Place pan in the oven bake for 10-12 minutes for biscuit dough, up to 20 minutes for bread dough.
Remove from oven and invert bread onto a serving plate.
Oh! Oh! Photo op for the awesomest plate that my friend Nat made for me!