Cheesy Garlic Sticks

All righty. Cheesy Garlic Sticks. I make them all the time. They are delicious, they only take a handful of ingredients, and often they are filling enough to make a meal out of on the cheap. I've tried a bunch of little tweaks to come up with what I think is the most delicious recipe for Cheesy Garlic Sticks. Ready for the recipe?

I don't make my own pizza dough. If you like making dough, by all means, go for it. I have yet to be satisfied with homemade pizza dough. So what I do is pick up premade pizza dough from Papa Murphys. It comes already rolled out, it is the 14" size, and is only $3! Compare this to pre-baked dough, which can run upwards of $6, and dough from a can, which I think tastes kinda gross. Note: From the comments on this post it has come to my attention that not all locations sell the dough premade, so you should call ahead and ask them if you don't want to waste a trip.

When you get your dough, it may need to be 'proofed', which just means it may need to rise. The longer you allow your dough to sit out and proof, the thicker the crust will be. I make my pizzas within a half hour to an hour of buying them, and I think the dough is just perfect. Not too thin, not too thick, just right. I lightly brushed the dough with olive oil, focusing on the edges so they would brown up nicely.

Next up for me to decide on was the type of cheese. Packaged shredded cheese melts really strange I have found. Whatever they put on the cheese to make it so it doesn't stick together in the bag will inhibit the cheese from melting and being nice and ooey gooey. So I ended up buying a ball of mozzarella (not the kind in water) and I tore the pieces of cheese with my fingers and covered the dough. If I had any really thick pieces of cheese, I flattened them slightly, but overall it was a quick process of pinching pieces of the cheese off of the ball and covering the dough.

After that, I grabbed a spoon and my jar of minced garlic from the fridge (I know, I know, but I love that stuff), I drizzled just a little bit of the garlic infused oil on the pizza, as well as some of the minced garlic itself. A sprinkle of Italian spices on top and it is ready to bake.

I've also added dried garlic powder to this, in addition to the garlic oil / minced garlic, to make it extra potent. If you are a garlic fan you might want to use both. It really just depends on how much of each you use. If you don't have minced garlic in a jar, feel free to use dried garlic instead. This is not a fussy recipe, just use what you got.

All in all, I thought it tasted fantastic. You can substitute a shredded cheese if you'd like, but in my experience it doesn't get super melty and delicious. It just sorta sits there.


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