Valentine’s Day is around the corner. February is an exciting month. It’s the month of celebrating love for your partner, family, and friends. Chinese New Year also landed in the month of February this year. Many years ago, when Kevin and I first started dating, we celebrated Valentine’s Day at Cottage Inn in Ann Arbor. We ordered a large pizza to share, a side salad, and garlicky bread sticks. Both of us had such a good time chatting over a delicious, simple meal. We wanted to recreate the experience with a simple Valentine’s Day dinner this year. Since Valentine’s Day is on a weekday this year, Kevin and I decided to celebrate the holiday this weekend. We celebrated with a simple meal of garlic knots with marinara sauce, a fresh salad, and a cast iron pizza. For dessert, we had vegan iced coffee with bits of chocolate chips blended into the drink. You can make a version of my iced coffee here. I am a huge fan of garlic knots and typically make shortcut garlic knots with marinara sauce when I’m short on time. For our Valentine’s Day celebration, I wanted to spend a little extra time by preparing pizza dough the evening before and using the pizza dough to make garlic knots from scratch. I doubled my pizza dough recipe and saved half of the dough for a cast iron pizza. If you’ve seen my recipe for shortcut garlic knots, you know how much I love the doughy goodness of garlic knots. I grew up eating garlic knots from a local pizzeria in Brooklyn. The pizzeria sold four large garlic knots for a dollar. Of course, the garlic knots were not the same without marinara sauce. I’m not sure if I can still get four garlic knots for a dollar these days, but I definitely took advantage of the cheaper prices in the early 2000s. When I made garlic knots today, I brushed on tons of my butter garlic sauce right before baking the knots. I saved about half of the butter garlic sauce to brush the knots again halfway through the baking process. These knots turned out buttery, slightly nutty, crispy, and paired very well with a side of marinara sauce. It was a perfect Valentine’s Day celebration for just the two of us.
For the garlic knots:
· 6-8 garlic cloves, finely minced
· 6-8 sprigs fresh parsley, finely chopped
· 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
· ¼ cup olive oil
· ½ teaspoon kosher salt
· my pizza dough recipe
For the marinara sauce:
· juice from a can of whole tomatoes
· 1 small (6 ounce) can of tomato paste
· ½ teaspoon kosher salt
· ¼ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
· 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
· ½ teaspoon garlic powder
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
2) In a medium bowl, combine the minced garlic, chopped parsley, butter, olive oil, and salt. Set aside.
3) Divide the pizza dough into about 15 pieces. Roll out the pieces of dough into logs. Brush each log with the garlic butter mixture. Gently tie the dough into a knot. Place the knot on the baking sheet. Repeat with the rest of the logs.
4) Brush on additional butter garlic mixture on the top of the garlic knots. Reserve about half of the butter garlic mixture for brushing the knots later. Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Turn the heat in the oven up to 400°F. Remove the baking sheet from the oven. Brush on the rest of the garlic butter mixture. Place the knots back into the oven for another 10 minutes, until garlic knots are golden brown.
5) To make the marinara sauce, heat a small pot on medium low heat. Add the juice from a can of whole tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and garlic powder. Let the sauce simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. Serve with the garlic knots.
Takeaways: I saved the whole tomatoes from the can to use as the tomato sauce for my cast iron pizza. Instead of pizza sauce, I ended up hand crushing the tomatoes and using it as a base for my pizza. For the garlic knots, brushing on the butter garlic sauce twice is a must. I generously brushed on the sauce right before baking and then again halfway through the baking process to really infuse the flavors into the knots. I typically have leftover marinara sauce after eating all of the knots. I save the extra marinara sauce for spaghetti later in the week.