Food for Friday, Special Edition – Garlic Bread with Goat Cheese, Pear, and Roasted Red Pepper

Feb 13, 2012 by Rebecca

I first tasted this bread, a very many years ago, when visiting with a friend in Montreal. My friend had a very small kitchen but loved to entertain and focused on simple dishes that were easy to prepare. She served this bread as the appetizer to our dinner that night, with a nice bottle of red wine, and it really was a great way to start a meal.

I’ve acquired the recipe and have started serving it to my guests when I need something delightful but straightforward. Now you can give it a try too! This garlic bread is, I guess, a kind of pull-apart bread. I’ve seen a few of them around the internet lately. Perhaps a sort of high-brow pull-apart bread. It’s not too hard, so I’m going to keep the instructions conversational, ok?

Ingredients
1 stick of salted butter
2-3 cloves of garlic (to your taste)
1 baguette
1 pkg or about
4 oz of goat cheese (chevre)
1 pear
about 250 mL of roasted red peppers (about 3 peppers)

Directions Mince the garlic, very finely and add to the butter. Melt together in a microwave or on the stove top. Slice the baguette on a slight diagonal about 1 inch apart along the length of the baguette. Transfer the baguette to a sheet of foil. The foil should be wide enough to wrap around the baguette and about 4 inches longer than the bread’s length. Spread a bit of goat cheese on each side of the bread in the slices. Slice the pear in half, core it, and cut into thin slices. Slice the peppers into 1/2 inch strips. In the first cut in the baguette put a piece of the red pepper. In the next cut in the baguette, stuff a slice or two of pear. Continue this way, alternating red pepper and pear along the whole baguette. Brush the warm garlic butter, liberally, all over the bread.