How to Throw a Garlic Bread Party for your Teen!

In honor of one of his favorite foods, my son asked for a “garlic bread party” to celebrate his 14th birthday, and I was immediately in! It’s always nice to have a theme as a jumping off point for party planning…and with this one, the menu pretty much takes care of itself. Themes aren’t as easy to come up with as they were when my boys were dinosaur/planet/science/comics/Elmo-obsessed little kids! FOOD-as-theme, though, is an easy crowdpleaser.
You may be wondering about that string of brown balloons in the photo above. Well, it was my attempt at a garlic bread garland! I know…I know, they look more like sausages and hot dogs. With a little more time I think I could have used some white acrylic paint to create better-looking scoring to make it look more like bread. (Side note: this project got me fascinated with bread scoring! I won’t ever look around in a bakery the same way!)

I used a brown Sharpie to draw the bread scoring on a mix of brown twisting and regular round balloons. (An inexpensive hand held balloon pump makes inflating so much much easier!)

My son’s shopping list included a variety of bread types, all destined to be garlic-buttered (aside from a few made with olive oil + garlic for the dairy-free kids). With this enormous haul, we got a few strange looks at the store!

As you can see, I did not manage to get any good pictures of the food before the kids got to it!
MENU
- classic garlic bread on baguettes
- 3-cheese garlic bread on rustic loaves from this Tasty video
- roasted garlic heads
- asst. slider/sandwiches on garlic-buttered rolls: meatball, breaded chicken cutlets (prepared, from the deli) , and vegetarian sausage
- kale salad
- veggie + dip plate
- sauteed garlic broccoli
- ice cream cake!

Tips: To simplify prep on party day, I made the meatballs the night before and stored them in the fridge in tomato sauce (Rao’s, purchased whenever it’s on sale!). Then we reheated them, stuffed them into rolls with a sprinkle of parmesan, brushed the roll tops with garlic butter and a sprinkle of chopped parsley and baked them until they were hot. We made a huge batch of garlic butter (opaque and creamy, not clear and melted) and spread it on the inside of all the baguettes, wrapped them each in foil but only baked them off as needed. (Bonus: leftover garlic breads in the freezer, ready to bake!)

Some of the kids brought their favorite kinds of garlic bread so we got to try things that were new to us, like Texas Toast and parmesan roasted garlic bread…yum!
Though we had no formal activities, we had a movie projected in the living room, another area with a bunch of games, and the basement set up with musical instruments. Towards the end of the night we cleared a dance floor in the living room and cranked up the music!
One last thing….I had the idea, albeit too late, to give out goody bags of mints + gum at the end of the night…very practical after such a garlic-y party! Ah well, next time!
ps- Unrelated to garlic bread, my son asked his guests to consider a donation to The Birthday Party Project in lieu of gifts and I wanted to take this opportunity to mention this incredible organization! TBPP hosts monthly birthday parties for kids aged 1-21 living at homeless and transitional living facilities across the country. Click here for more info or to donate!