Cheese garlic rolls: Quick and easy recipe

Quick and easy garlic, mushrooms and cheese bites

If you're familiar with my other recipes, you'll know that one of my go-to ingredients is ready-to-bake dough. Not only does it taste great, it is also quick and easy to use and wow, there's nothing like that gorgeous aroma of bread products wafting throughout the house as they bake.

This is a simple recipe using crescent dough . This is baked and then stuffed with a delicious mix of mushrooms and another one of my favorite ingredients - garlic. Because we are a meat-free household, we often have these for dinner or lunch - they're lovely served with a simple salad.

But they are also very tasty an an appetizer or for brunch. If I'm making these for friends who are coming for a meal, I prepare the dough on a baking sheet, make the stuffing and then store them in the fridge. Then, when the guest arrive, it's easy to bake, heat and assemble the rolls.

1 tube ready-to-bake croissants
2 - 3 ounces cheese, shredded
8 button mushrooms - cleaned and chopped
3 cloves garlic - crushed
A little olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper

• Here's how to make these delicious rolls:
• Pre-heat the oven to the temperature recommended by the croissant manufacturers - for the ones I use, it is 350 degrees
• Heat the oil and sauté the chopped mushrooms and garlic. Turn the heat down to low
• Divide the croissant dough into eight triangles and roll up, starting from the longest edge
• Most makes need about 12 minute to cook but remove them from the oven with 2 minutes baking time to go
• Remove the mushroom / garlic mix from the heat and stir in the cheese and black pepper
• Split the croissant rolls lengthwise (keeping a 'hinge' at one side'.)
• Divide the mix between them, close the rolls and return them to the oven to complete the cooking time - about 2-3 minutes

We have garlic with almost every meal - we must be awfully stinky. But garlic has been medically proved to be advantageous to health (that's our excuse) and it's not always that a food you love is good for you - normally the reverse is true.

It's good to know that something as delicious as the aromatic little bulb is as good for us as it tastes.

We find that there are two essentials for using garlic regularly in cooking. The first could be called our garlic 'handbook'.You can see it below.

I remember many years ago when I used to crush garlic by putting it onto a chopping board and then mashing it with the back of a spoon.It worked well but the chopping board had to be used exclusively for garlic and onions - it was impossible to fully get rid of the garlic flavour on the board.

Then I realised that this problem could be solved by one simple and inexpensive purchase - a specialist garlic crusher. They are inexpensive and last forever.

Although these gorgeous rolls can be made ahead, they are so quick to cook that there's really little point.

I can't tell you how many guests we have invited to dinner who, when entering our apartment, immediately say 'oh, what a lovely smell.'

Expert chefs, hosts and restaurateurs know that the anticipation of a meal actually increases the enjoyment and that's what happens when your guests (or your family) smell the aroma of these delicious croissants wafting from your oven.

I have met one or two(strange,I think) people who claim that they do not like garlic. I do find it best to ask guests when I'm inviting them whether they have any particular dislikes. This is also good practice because of allergies and all the many and varied special diets that people follow in this day and age.

On the very rare occasions that garlic has been mentioned as a dislike, I simply make these rolls without using it. Then I put a dish of olive oil on the table into which I have crushed a liberal amount of garlic. The garlic lovers can then dip. It's almost as good!