Lazy Cheesy Jalapeño & Garlic Ciabatta Bread

I have been eating so healthily since October that sometimes I really feel the need to not think about what I’m eating. I think its important to be mindful of what you consume but thats not something I want to be doing 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Last night I found out I had lost 16b in the last 3 months. I’m pretty proud of that. It just proves that indulgences are fine when they aren’t constant ones. Anyway in my lets indulge mood I wanted something which was easy to make, quick and satisfying so I came up with this lazy garlic bread. Its lazy because it uses a store bought ciabatta, jarred jalapeños and garlic paste. Its also not that calorific when you consider that I used low fat spread and also a fairly small amount of cheese.

You could make this and be eating it within 15 minutes. This is also a great way to use up slightly stale bread, this was a reduced to clear m&s ciabatta which I used a day or two past sell by.

Lazy Cheesy Jalapeños & Garlic Ciabatta Bread

You will need:

1 ciabatta loaf
10 -15 jalapeños or more if you like a bit of heat!
75g margarine or butter – I used a light spread
2tbsp of garlic puree
50g grated extra mature cheddar

Preheat oven to 220c.

Place your loaf onto a large sheet of tinfoil. Make about 6 cuts into your loaf, slice about 2/3 of the way through. Mix your butter/spread with your garlic puree well and divide between the slices and roughly spread it about. Now distribute your jalapeños so they poke out between the slices. Wrap in the foil and bake for about 8 minutes then remove from oven and sprinkle over your mature cheddar, place under a hot grill until the cheese is bubbling and your jalapeños look slightly burnished. Now enjoy and try not to eat the entire loaf to yourself..this is SUPPOSED to be a sharing dish.

The cheese on top is more about the visual appeal and the string of melted gooey cheese you get when you remove your slice so if you are watching calories you could avoid this ingredient and it would still taste awesome. You could also thrown in any ingredients you like, hams, peppers and sundried tomatoes are just some of the fridge leftovers that would work well.