Spaghetti Night Sides: Featuring Homemade Garlic Bread and Kale Salad

Originally posted on July 17, 2013

Hey blogees!!

Hope everyone's day is going awesome.  As a college student, finding ways to cut my grocery budget is super important to me, so today I'm going to share one of my economical dinner plans - spaghetti night!

I didn't have any garlic bread, so I made my own with ingredients I had around the house, and I finished the meal off with a light Kale Salad for some greenery.  Hope you enjoy! :-)

Homemade Garlic Bread

Ingredients:

• 4 slices bread of your choice (I used sandwich bread, just because it's what we had on hand)
• 3-4 tablespoons butter (I used light butter with canola oil)
• 2 medium garlic cloves
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tablespoon dried basil

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2) Mix together all ingredients together in a small bowl until well blended.  It will be very garlic-y to the taste at this point, but that will cook out during baking.

3) Take the mix and spread on one side of each slice of bread.  Place the bread slices side by side on a baking sheet and cover with foil.

4) Bake in oven for 10 minutes, then take off the foil and allow the bread to brown for another 5-10 minutes.

5) Serve immediately while hot.

Fresh Kale Salad

Ingredients:

•  4 cups leafy Kale - I used Tuscan, also known as Dinosaur, Kale
• Dried pepper of your choosing (I used a milder red pepper)
• 1-2 medium garlic cloves
• 1/2 lemon
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 2-4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 to 1 cup Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1) Wash kale and cut or tear into bite sized pieces, then put into a large bowl.

2) Cut up desired amount of dried pepper and garlic cloves, then add to the chopped kale.

3) Squeeze juice from lemon onto the salad, then add desired amount of salt and pepper.

4) Toss salad with olive oil until completely coated, then sprinkle Parmesan cheese over top.

5) Serve and enjoy!

For the spaghetti I simply browned 1 pound of ground turkey and added it to a premade tomato sauce which I then heated on the stovetop, and cooked the spaghetti noodles according to the package directions.

Dinner came out amazing, and it was so affordable and quick.  This is definitely on my list of cheap and convenient meals that I want to make again and again.

Enjoy!!

-Britt

Recipe Inspirations:

http://earner.hubpages.com/hub/Easy-Garlic-Bread-on-a-Budget-Recipe---Ideal-for-Students