Garlic Knots

I love garlic knots. You know, those chewy little bits of pizza dough tied up all perfect with garlic and butter in every little nook and cranny. They taste so good, but I hate the price. Around here, the pizza shops charge $3.95 for 4 of them. That's crazy! For some dough that costs them like 2 cents to make with some garlic and butter thrown on top?? No, no no, it's definitely time to make my own.

Garlic Bread Spaghetti Calzones

I am very into the new My Plate eating guidelines. You know, the ones that tell you half your plate should be fruits and veggies. It doesn't bother me any because this is how I ate long before it became the cool thing to do. The boys are a little less receptive, but they are catching on quickly.

Almost every meal we eat is planned according to this outline. But every now and then, I am in the mood for an all-out carb-fest. That's how recipes like this one are created. The boys love it because spaghetti is one of their favorite foods. I love it because the garlic bread is the only thing that makes the spaghetti worth eating in the first place. I just ignore the whining the next day when I am serving up double doses of veggies to make up for it.

Tortilla Pizza

When I was a kid, we had take out once a week. It was usually on Friday and we usually got pizza. This sounds great in theory, but there were six of us and we all wanted different things. Pizza is expensive, and obviously my parents weren't going to buy six different pizzas, so we usually ended up with plain or some various meat-topped pie. Today, pizza isn't any cheaper and I simply can't justify dropping 12 bucks on a glorified version of cheesy bread. These tortilla pizzas are so quick and easy, each one can be made to suit everyone's favorites (kids love this!), and they offer built-in portion control for those of us who lose all willpower before the delivery driver has even finished counting his tip. Score!

Pizza Quesadillas (or is it Quesadilla Pizza...?)

We are big pizza eaters around here. And by we, I mean the boys. I eat one slice and I'm happy but they can kill a whole pie by themselves in under 20 minutes. This can get expensive if you're ordering in and time-consuming if you're going the DIY route. I like to mix it up with French bread pizzas, English muffin pizzas, and lately, quesadilla pizzas. Andrew is a purist so he isn't a huge fan, but K loves them. Sometimes he even asks me to send them to school in his lunch box. (I'll take that over the school's cardboard-pizza Fridays any day!)