ITALIAN LOVE KNOT COOKIES

My family loves these cookies! I grew up loving these cookies as well! It is an old family recipe that has been passed down to me - I have been making these for about 45 years. It is a "doughy" cookie that is not too sweet.

INGREDIENTS

1½ teaspoon vanilla
3½ cups flour
¾ stick butter – melted
½ cup sugar
4 eggs
2½ teaspoons baking powder

Put all the ingredients in a mixer bowel - add the baking powder LAST – then mix all ingredients with mixer. Knead the dough (use dough hook in mixer) – keep kneading it until it is a solid ball of dough. It will be smooth and not sticky. The dough will be easy to handle. If the dough is sticky, keep kneading. You can add a little bit of flour to help with the stickiness - but don't add too much.

Take a piece of dough and roll it out until it is about the thickness of a pencil and tie in a knot. (See photos)

Take a chunk of dough and roll it between your hands.

Lay it down on a clean surface (do NOT put flour on the surface - it is not needed). Continue rolling the dough - it will get longer in shape.

As the rolled dough gets longer, cut it in half to make it easier to keep rolling.

Photo shows various stages of the dough as it is being rolled to a specific length.

Length should be about 5 - 5½ inches.

Does not have to be exact.

Make a loop.

   

Make a knot.

Place on UNGREASED cookie sheets. Cook in 350 degree oven – for about 20 minutes (depends on how big the cookie knots are). Usually, it will take about 15-18 minutes. The bottom will be lightly brown and the top may also be lightly brown.

DONE! (depending on the size of the cookies, this recipe will make about 6-7 dozen cookies). Enjoy!

 

FREEZING MILK

Did you find a great deal on milk but now you don’t know what to do with it all? Then this post is for you!

I don’t use a lot of milk but I do like it in my tea. I have tried using heavy cream in my tea but it just doesn’t taste the same. The problem is that I don’t use very much milk each week. I also don’t want to spend a lot of money on buying quarts each time I need milk. So, I buy a gallon. And then I split it up into 9 pint jars and freeze. Whatever is left in the gallon, I will use that week. After that, I typically use one pint jar each week for my tea. Which means a gallon of milk will last me 9 weeks!

When freezing milk, leave some room at the top of the jar for the milk to expand a little. I use plastic tops for the jars – you can buy them at Walmart. Or, you can use the tops that come with peanut butter! They fit perfectly and it is one less thing you have to buy. That is all there is to freezing milk! When you start to run low on milk, take another jar out of the freezer and it will thaw overnight. There is no difference in the taste of the milk when it is frozen.

PS: It is helpful to have a standalone freezer as the jars will take up some space.