Frugal food: Rhodes garlic knots

Before I hit you with the recipe, here's a little factoid of Jewish history and culture for you:  tonight, the first night of the Jewish month of Av, starts the period that Jews call "The Nine Days." It is the last part of the "The Three Weeks" (Bain HaMetzorim in Hebrew) of national mourning, when Jews all over the world lament the loss of their Temples in Jerusalem. Both of our Temples (Bait HaMikdash in Hebrew) were destroyed on the same day of the Jewish calendar, the 9th day of Av, the first Temple in 586 B.C.E. and the second Temple in 70 C.E. The days leading up to the Temples' destruction were terrible ones in Jewish history, and even though the destruction took place thousands of years ago, observant Jews refuse to forget, and take on mourning rituals, one of which is to refrain from eating meat or drinking wine during The Nine Days.  (We suspend this ritual for Shabbat.)

So for the next nine days (excluding Shabbat), we'll be eating either dairy or pareve ("pareve" means containing neither dairy nor meat) dishes.  I and some of my fellow blogger friends will be posting some frugal, interesting and easy recipes for The Nine Days.

Here's one to start you off that is so easy, it's barely a recipe.  Rhodes dough garlic knots go great with any kind of pasta dish, though truth be told, I just eat them with anything; they are so easy and delicious.  I make them with Rhodes dough because a) I'm too lazy to make dough from scratch and b) if I use Rhodes dough, I know that they will come out perfect.  The versatile consistency of Rhodes dough is amazing and adapts to many different types of crusts and breads.  This recipe calls for about half a package of Rhodes dough white bread loaves and yields about 40-45 or so knots.  The total cost to make them is around $3, which is ridiculously frugal compared to buying frozen pre-made garlic knots.

You'll need:

• 2 1/2 loaves of Rhodes white bread dough
• olive oil cooking spray
• 4 T. of dried basil
• 1/4 c. of marinated chopped garlic or a few good shakes of plain old garlic powder
• 1 beaten egg for basting

Spray down a cookie sheet with the olive oil cooking spray and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Defrost the Rhodes dough until pliable and slice into 1/2" wide, 3" long strips.  No need to be neat about this.  Roll the strips into little ropes and make simple knots out of them, tucking the ends under.  Spread the knots out on the cookie sheet and spray the tops with olive oil spray to keep them from drying out.  You should have about 40-50 knots.
Let the knots rise for about one hour.  Baste the tops with the beaten egg, and then depending on what you've got in your pantry, top with either dollops of the marinated chopped garlic (push the garlic gently into the knots), or sprinkle very liberally with the garlic powder (or both).  Sprinkle the dried basil on top of garlicky knots.  Be very generous with the basil and garlic....you can't overdo them.  Spray the tops again with the olive oil cooking spray and pop the knots into the oven.  Remove when the tops are golden brown (about a half hour).  Serve warm.  Scrumptious.

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