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Herbed Bread Sticks
Despite what you might think, nothing is more difficult to me than shooting in direct sunlight. So many exposure issues to pay attention to, so many harsh shadows, so much soft, yellow light to mess up your white balance. But I like a good challenge and believe I’ve used the soft and rustic light to my advantage.
What did I make? Another party snack/appetizer, of course! Simple herbed bread sticks. New years is right around the corner and I love a table filled with copious amounts of simple yet tasty snacks. This is definitely one of them. It makes for a fantastic appetizer when you serve them with soup and transforms into party food at New Years. Incredibly simple but amazingly good. More party food recipes can be found here.
I think there’s something rewarding about making your own snacks/appetizers rather than buying pre-made ones. It doesn’t have to be a 5 star meal that looks utterly breathtaking, but people see, taste and feel you went that extra mile. Not sure why, but it’s important to me that my friends and loved ones know I took the time and effort to prepare something special for them, no matter how simple a recipe it may be.
Ingredients:
Ciabatta or Focaccia
5 tbsp olive oil
flat leaf parsley
2 sun-dried tomatoes (on oil)
1 garlic clove
pepper
salt
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 400F (200C).
I didn’t want to cheat or I would have probably grabbed the mini food processor that came with my immersion blender, tossed it all in and blitzed … feel free to make it easy on yourself, ok! Minimum effort, maximum flavor is good :)
Grab a bowl and pour 5 tbsp olive oil in there.
I’m going for a really heavy garlic flavor, so I bought red creole garlic—it has a far more intense flavor than regular garlic. I’ve used one decent sized clove, so if you like garlic as much as I do, go for 2 medium sized normal cloves or play it safe and use one. I’ll only laugh at you for a little while :)
Grate the garlic and add it to the oil. It will immediately start to flavor it.
The weather has been awesome here, freezing cold but with a clear blue sky and lots of sunshine. Hence the way my photos seem to be immersed in soft yellow light.
See how much I use the stuff? Wash, dry and finely chop a really good handful of flat leaf parsley. I once tried it with basil and the flavor was just too overpowering; this seems to work best. I’m sure you can also do this with fresh sage, though.
Finely chop 2 sun-dried tomatoes. I really like the deep, sweet flavor they give to dishes—the flavor of summer. You just can’t beat it, it’s like adding a little sunshine to your food.
Add everything to the bowl and season with salt and pepper to taste. You can add whatever you like, a little cayenne or some onion powder. Just try not to over-season it, less is really more. Give everything a good stir.
They were out of full-sized ciabatta/focaccia by the time I got to the store, now I could have made a focaccia myself but simply didn’t have time for it. I’ll probably make one myself the day before New Years since this recipe works really well with slightly stale bread.
Opted for 3 small ciabattas this time, sliced them (about 1 inch slices) and turned those into smaller strips.
Putting them in a large roasting or baking tray always works best for me; less dishes to wash because you can just flavor them inside the tray. Pour the oil on top and shuffle them around with your hands until they’re covered with herb oil. Try not to let them overlap each other too much.
Pop them in your preheated oven for about 15 minutes, until golden brown and crunchy. I like serving them in several lower glasses. Especially whiskey glasses are great for this, it looks so perky :)
– Kayotic Kitchen Recipe Card -
Click here for printable size.
YUM! Can I come to your house for New Year’s? :-)
No problem .. the more the merrier :) I always have tons of food because around midnight half the people who live in this street drop by as well.
I really, really wish I lived on your street…
Happy New Year – again…and all is synced with feed and links!
What tasty bread sticks! They look good.
Looks great!
Pre-made appetizers are never as good.
I hope you can post a good Ollie Bollen recipe on here for New Years :)
Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar!
First of all, I love your blog and of course your photos!! I now know why none of my photos ever get accepted, I am whatever you are before you are a beginner. Anyway, these bread sticks look so good and perfect for the family New Year celebration. Thanks for the posting and the awesome photos.
Those look delicious and simple. My kind of New Year’s snack!
These look drool-worthy. Now to find some ciabatta/focacia locally.
Oh, and I have an award for you at my blog.
Girl, you are SO addicted to Ciabatta. Mee too. Hee hee. I just made your Country Egg Salad and I am eating it as I type. Yes I am.
I’ve got little pieces of egg and spring onion on my keyboard to prove it.
Great blog.
I’m single but I can’t HELP making your recipes. Potato Gratin is next in line. Brilliant use of Sour Cream to keep the darn thing from separating.
Those looks amazing! So simple, yet so delicious.
Oh my gosh! I just LOVE your recipe card. Hope there are more of these. When I print off your recipes with your directions it takes up way to much space in my cookbook file. LOL. Loving your recipes though. My new year will be full of “dinner by Kay” feasts.
Happy New Year Kay! All the very best to you in 2009.
Love your pictures and recipes. I will definately be coming back to visit.
Happy New Year! Okay it is a little early but we are several hours behind you so I thought I would get this out now! I am going to try these out for this evening as it will just be the five of us. Pretty much all road travel has been suspended because of weather. We woke up to -45 (yes 45 below zero and getting colder) with ice fog! It is absolutely beautiful but I’ve not figured out how to photograph it adequately! At 1045 everything is all cotton candy pinks, blues, and crisp whites! Truly lovely.
Once again Happy New Years!
Dear Kay,
This is my first visit to your site and I must tell you I am so glad I stopped by! I never knew of your existence and just saw your guest post over at PW’s. I’ve added you to my blogroll and wanted to tell you how much I LOVE and respect your photography. So inspiring.
Happy New Year to you. Great website!
I am very sad because I have spent the last half hour or so looking through your recipes, but I am unable to bookmark any of them! I can only bookmark the main page (kayotickitchen.com). What’s up with that? :(
Gia, I have a trackback url just below each posting, those are the pages you can bookmark. Still have to find a way around the domain forwarding.Just fixed it. Below each posting is now a ‘bookmark this page’ link :)
This is now on my list for the buffet table. Simple, delicious and beautiful the way you served it.
happy New Year
just jumped over here from PW’s site…will be adding you to my “daily visited blogs”, Right under PW!!
love the recipes!
Thank you so much for this wonderful recipe!
I love love loved it
Kay,
LOVE you blog and the pictures make me drool. Quick question, the link you gave for Focaccia in this recipe, would I make that plain for use in this recipe, or go ahead and add the rosemary and garlic. Or whatever makes your skirt fly up ;)
M
Margaret, I usually make it plain when I use it for breadsticks. But I use that recipe for lots of things, I also use it for pizza dough.
But really, whatever makes your skirt fly up :)
Oh those bread sticks look so delicious. I definitely am going to be trying out a few of your recipes very soon, everything just looks so good, I’m getting hungry just looking at it all.
Oh my goodness, I made these last week to go with Baked Ziti, yum! I used your recipe for the focaccia and made it with whole wheat flour. Everyone loved them, I had to hide some so Hubby could enjoy them when he got home. THANKS!!!!!!
Margaret, now you’ve made me crave baked Ziti … it’s been ages since I last ate it. Glad you liked it!
I know! I posted my recipe this morning and now, I NEED ziti!!!
http://thefrazzledmama.com/?page_id=413