Lately I have been struggling with my meal planning. Between Jim’s travel schedule (who wants to cook when their husband is out of town!), the high school musical, Spring Break and just life in general I have not done a very good job of planning out our weekly dinner menus. That results in a lot of panic and frustration at about 4:30 and too many trips to the grocery store each week (almost daily).
One thing I know about myself – when I am held accountable, when I announce to the world, or a few close friends one of my goals, I do much better.
This week, on my family blog, I announced to those few people who actually read it that I was going to post the Wilkes’ Weekly Dinner Plan each Monday. So if you are interested in what we had for dinner this week and the recipes please feel free to check it out .
On Fridays, I will be posting our favorite recipe from our Wilkes Weekly Dinner Plan on this blog. I usually try 3-4 new recipes a week so hopefully there will be a winner amongst one of them or I will just share an old family favorite.
This week the winner is – Garlic Knots.
I served these Wednesday night with a new pasta dish I tried. The pasta dish was good too but the Garlic Knots were wonderful! Jim was down at our beach house that night doing some repair work so wasn’t home for dinner and boy were we glad because that meant more Garlic Knots for the rest of us!! I think I ate 6-8 myself!
They are made from pizza dough and so on Monday when I made pizza for dinner I saved half the pizza dough for the Garlic Knots – isn’t meal planning great!
I highly recommend you give this one a try! How can anything drenched in olive oil, garlic and Parmesan cheese be anything but wonderful!!
1 lb. pizza dough
2 garlic gloves, minced
1/2 tsp. salt
2-3 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh flat leaf parsley or oregano (I used dry because it was raining and I didn’t want to run out to the herb garden)
About 1/4 cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
Preheat oven to 400. Grease or olive oil one large baking sheet.
Using a lightly floured rolling pin and a floured countertop, roll out the dough into a large (roughly 9 inch) square. If you can’t quite get there by rolling, go ahead and gently pull on the dough as you would for rolling out a pizza crust.
Cut the square in half with a pizza wheel, then cut each half crosswise into strips (try to keep them to around an inch wide, or less) Cover strips with a clean kitchen towel.
Keeping remaining strips covered, pull out a strip of dough to work with one at a time. Gently tie each strip into a knot, pulling ends slightly to secure, and place knots about an inch apart on the baking sheet. You’ll end up with about 20 knots. Bake until golden brown , 15-20 minutes.
While knots bake, mash together the minced garlic, salt and olive oil – I used the back of a knife to smash the garlic. I leave my garlic a little chunky. Transfer garlic oil mixture to a large bowl. Immediately after baking, toss knots in garlic oil, then sprinkle on the parsley and cheese. Toss to coat. Voila, you’re done! be sure to serve them while still warm – would be great with a little marinara for dipping too but are fantastic without it!
Recipe from Cast Sugar food blog.
If you don’t have a good pizza dough recipe – here is one I like.
Homemade Pizza Dough
1 packet of active dry yeast
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. salt
2 cups of warm water
5-6 cups all purpose flour
2 Tbsp. olive oil.
Makes enough for two pizzas
In a large bowl, dissolve in 2 cups of warm water, yeast, sugar and salt
Using a spoon, gently blend.
Add 5 cups of flour and 2 Tbsp. of olive oil to start. Blend until the dough starts to form, then knead (I used my Kitchen-Aid)
Knead until the dough becomes springy and smooth. It should take 5-10 minutes of vigorous by hand kneading or about 5 minutes in Kitchen Aid. It will be soft and silky when done.
Place the dough in a large, clean bowl coated with olive oil and rub some olive oil on top of the dough. Cover with a clean, dry dishtowel and let rise in a warm, draft free area until doubled in size (I forgot to start early so I skipped this step)
Punch the dough down to release air bubbles. Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface to roll out. You can let the rolled out dough rest for about 30 minutes, it will rise slightly and create a puffier crust (I skipped this step as well – I was in a hurry!)
Leftover dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Coat the inside of a Ziploc bag with some cooking spray and drop the dough in. Allow to come to room temperature before rolling out. Leftover dough perfect for Garlic Knots
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