Marinara Sauce – Bead Yarn & Spatula

So this is sort of a continuation from yesterday’s post – Slow Cooker Marinara Sauce. I made the sauce to go along with today’s post… A Cheesy Garlic Monkey Bread. I originally came across this recipe in an issue of Rachael Ray Magazine last year. Well, the recipe was for a Basic Monkey Bread and then you had a few options to flavor the bread. I was partial to trying the Cheesy Garlic version.

The version in the magazine called for you to actually make the dough for the bread, but, to be honest working with yeast and me don’t always go over that well. So, when I saw a recipe that used Pillsbury Grands! Biscuits as the base for a monkey bread I knew I had to try it.

I began by combining olive oil, grated Parmesan, minced garlic and salt in a large bowl.

Next, I cut each Grands! Biscuit into four equal pieces. I ended up using 2 cans of biscuits, each of which has 8 biscuits so I ended up with 64 pieces. After cutting the biscuits of the first can I placed them back in the refrigerator so they would stay cold while I cut biscuits from the second can. It’s best to work with the biscuits when they are cold, you don’t want them to become warm & sticky.

I then tossed half of the quartered biscuits in the olive oil mixture and gradually added in the remaining quarters.

After spraying a Bundt pan with cooking spray, I layered the biscuit pieces into the pan. I opted to use my hands to spread the pieces into the pan to ensure they would be even throughout the pan.

I then baked it in a 350F preheated oven for about 35 to 40 minutes. Until it was browned on top and I was sure that all of the biscuit pieces had cooked throughout the monkey bread. After letting it cool in the pan for a few minutes I inverted it and sprinkled it with freshly chopped parsley…

And a side of homemade marinara sauce.

Cheesy Garlic Monkey Bread

Servings: 10-12
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Ingredients:

2 Cans (16.3 oz.) Grands! Original Biscuits

3/4 cup olive oil

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 F and butter a large Bundt pan.

In a large bowl combine the olive oil, parmesan cheese, garlic and salt and set aside.

Working with 1 can at a time, cut each of the biscuits into quarters. After cutting the first can place it back in the refrigerator while cutting the biscuits of the second can.

Fold half of the quartered biscuits into the olive oil mixture and gradually add in the remaining pieces.

Pile the biscuit pieces evenly into the prepared Bundt pan and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until browned and cooked through.

Let cool for 5 minutes in the pan and then invert onto a large plate and sprinkle with parsley. Serve with marinara sauce for dipping.

Recipe Adapted From Rachael Ray Magazine

So about two months ago while perusing in the cookbook section of my local Barnes & Noble I began scanning through some of their slow cooker cookbooks and settled on purchasing America’s Test Kitchen: Slow Cooker Revolution. I was excited to try out some of the recipes as they sounded really good. I started with the Loaded Baked Potato Soup and it was a disaster! It had no flavor and was more like heavy mashed potatoes instead of soup. I decided that I would try it again another day with less potatoes. But then I tried another recipe and it didn’t come out that great, okay, truthfully, it was horrible again. It was a Broccoli and Chicken sauce that was to be used for pasta. The sauce, made with chicken broth and wine as the base, was bitter and the chicken was dry. Yuck! So, instead of trying a third recipe – quite honestly at this point none of the recipes sounded all that great – I headed back to Barnes & Noble to see if I could return it. And luckily I was able to. And since I wasn’t in a rush, I headed back to the cookbook area and picked up another book to try out… Slow Cooker Family Favorites by Maggie Shi. And (oh boy, starting 3 sentences in a row with “and,” such bad grammar… LOL) the first recipe I tried was delish… a slow cooker marinara sauce.

To make the sauce I combined crushed tomatoes, olive oil, tomato paste, red wine vinegar, fresh basil, fresh garlic and salt in the bowl of my slow cooker.

And then gave everything a few good stirs and set it to cook on low for seven hours. For a little extra seasoning I added a few grinds of fresh pepper and that was it.

I ended up with about 6 cups of sauce. I decided to freeze 4 cups and used 2 cups as a dipping sauce for this Cheesy Garlic Monkey Bread that I will be posting about tomorrow!