Tri-Color Pasta Salad

I made this tonight to go with dinner. It's simple, great for picnics, and totally tasty! It's been 80 here so I've been rejoicing in the heat by cooking summer food. It's not exciting by any stretch of the imagination, but it has FOUR ingredients!

Ingredients:
One box "Garden" pasta, aka Tri-Color radiatore
One block cheddar cheese, cubed (Vermont extra sharp if you can get it)
A handful of pepperoni slices
One small bottle of Kraft Zesty Italian dressing

Directions:
Cook the pasta a little past al dente. Strain and run under cold water for 2 minutes or until it's cold. Transfer to bowl. Add cheddar and pepperoni, stirring thoroughly. Add Zesty Italian a bit at a time. Taste test until it's strong enough. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 10 minutes before serving.

This goes amazingly with food cooked on a grill.

Garlic Mashed Potatoes.

So here's the story: Last night my mother says "Tomorrow, I'm making ham and potatoes." My dad, being snarky, says "Why don't you make them into garlic mashed potatoes, Britt?" and so I did, much to the chagrin of my mother, who thought she was making dinner tonight.

While looking for a guide for proportions rather than a recipe, I racked my brain and figured Paula Deen would be my best bet for mashed potatoes. Considering she's the woman the regularly cooks with lard, I figure home-food is her forte.

Man, was I right.

Slightly altered;
Ingredients:
6 Medium Sized Red/Gold Potatoes
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1/2 a stick of butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream
Up to 3 tbsp. whole milk/heavy cream/half&half/or even two percent milk
Salt and Pepper
Chives or Parsley for garnish

Directions: Peel and chop your potatoes into fourths. Place them in salted boiling water, cook for about 15 minutes. Strain into a colander then place back into the pot. add the garlic, butter, and sour cream. Mash with a masher or a fork until well blended. Add a metric ton or salt and pepper, because who wants starchy unsalted potatoes? Add the dairy(I used heavy cream and it was AWESOOOME with three o's) one tablespoon at a time until the consistency is what you want. Obviously the more you add, the more pureed it will get.

Serve immediately with a bit of salt, pepper, and parsley on top (or chives if you have them, because they're wonderful)

The only word to describe these is Mmmnhgghh.

The companion to everything Italian: Knots.

Garlic knots are like garlic bread's estranged cousin. They're kept hush hush in the land of food. I don't know, when I mention knots to people they're always flabbergasted. I personally think they're the singularly most delicious bread dish ever. (Excuse the hyperbole)

I made these this week when I made my BBQ Chicken Pizza, but I've refrained from posting it because I've had a majorly busy week. So here we go (adapted from foodmayhem)

Ingredients:
1 Package Pizza Dough (Or make your own, I don't have enough time to do that...)
4-5 Cloves garlic, peeled and minced
About 1 tbsp fresh Parsley, chopped coarsely( I went by sight, I didn't measure)
About 6 tbsp Olive Oil (Once again, I didn't measure this out)
1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Start by mincing your garlic, chopping your parsley, and all that fun prep work.
2. Preheat your oven to 425 F.
   
3. Lightly toss your dough with a bit of olive oil before spreading it out into a rectangle as big as you can get on a baking sheet. Make sure your baking sheet has olive oil on it too, or else we'll have burned on garlic knots. We do not want that.
   
4. In a prep bowl, combine your garlic and about 1-2 tsp of the olive oil. Add 1/2 of the mixture to the top of your dough, and spread it out.
   
5. With a knife or one of those cool pastry wheel things(I don't have one, though) cut your bread mixture width-wise, each strip being about 1/2-3/4 of an inch thick. You should end up with 10-12 strips.
   
6. Now, tie it like the first step of tying shoelaces. If you never learned how to tie your shoes, make it fun! Make pretzel shapes, hearts, whatever. It will all bake the same. Spread them out evenly on your same baking sheet.
7. Cook them for about 8 minutes. They won't be done at this point, but take them out and add your other 1/2 of the garlic mixture now. Then sprinkle with the fresh parsley. Cook for about 4-5 more minutes.
   The reason for this is because I haaaaaaate uncooked garlic. The original recipe calls for cooking the knots for 12 minutes or so, and then adding the final half of the garlic mixture. I can't get behind this. Cooked garlic gets a little bit more tame, which is how my mom and I both like it. But if you wish to add your uncooked garlic at the end... no one is stopping you.

Note: There is a fine line between cooked, chewy delicious pizza dough, and uncooked, yeasty, sticky pizza dough. The only way to check if the middle is done is to cut into it and bite into it (I know it's a tough thing to do morally, but you have to! /sarcasm) If it's not done in the middle, it needs more time, clearly. And if the outside is starting to burn, this is when you have to make do.

If the outsides are burning and the insides are raw, you have to cut all of them in half, to diminish the cooking time. This works for pepperoni rolls all the time.

So, in short, these things are epically delicious. I actually kind of want to make them again tonight.