Garlic Cheese Bread for the Freezer

Who knows how long ago we started, but Lucas and I have been buying and devouring New York brand Texas Toast Cheese Bread (in the freezer section at the store) to eat with all our pasta dishes. Well, now that I am staying home and in charge of saving money through grocery shopping, I am doing an experiment to see if I can recreate the garlicky cheesy goodness myself. This would save us roughly $4.00 a month. Sigh. Not much, but I suppose it is a start!

What I did:

When grocery shopping, I searched the day-old bread table for good deals and found a loaf of French bread on clearance for $.50.  Sold. Times 2.  We used the other loaf for French toast. 

This loaf I cut into 20 1" slices with a bread knife.  Then, I prepared my garlic butter blend.  I had never done this before and didn't have a recipe, so it was kind of a hmmm, this looks good, I'll add that, kind of process.  Into the food processor went:

1 stick of butter, room temp.

1 T. dried parsley

4 cloves of garlic

3 T. grated parmesan cheese

handful of shredded mozzarella

All Blended!
After distributing the garlic butter blend amongst the 20 slices of bread, I spread them out on rimmed baking sheets.  I pressed an additional layer of shredded mozzarella onto their tops and stuck the trays into the freezer--I think it was about 30 minutes (roughly 1 diaper change and a game of try to hold onto the toy with Lincoln).  When they were frozen (enough so the butter wasn't sticky anymore) I placed them into a freezer safe bag.  Because they were frozen separately, they won't stick together when you stack them like this.

Ta-Da!  20 slices of frozen garlic cheese bread for about $1.50 (estimating the cost of the bread plus the cheese and butter used...).

To cook, I plan to make them just like we make the New York brand bread:  place in the toaster oven at 400 degrees for 4-5 minutes or until cheese is melty and browning.  You could do it in a big oven too, but I don't like to turn the big oven on for a couple pieces of toast...