Superbowl Party Homemade Pretzels

For me, Superbowl weekend is all about food, friends, and commercials.  I could care less about football, and especially so this year, since the game was awful.  This game bored me more that football normally does. Seriously. Luckily, my lovely hubby saved the day by deciding that he wanted to try to make homemade pretzels.  It was a random idea and it turned out to be amazing one.  The game may have sucked, but I was consoled by the delicious food.  Yum.

So I thought I'd share the recipe with you fine people.

Let me just start out by saying that this is not my recipe.  I found it here at Sally's Baking Addiction.

We didn't quite follow her recipe though.  I can't seem to stick to a recipe 100% in anything I make.  It stifles my creativity or something.

We made two different batches, since one of our friends is gluten free.  The first batch we made with regular all purpose flour, the second was with King Arthur all purpose gluten free flour.

The process is pretty simple.  The dough is a basic bread dough with flour, water, salt, and yeast.  You don't need to let it rise or anything, just roll it out and bake it.

I usually mix dough with my kitchenaid, but Robert wanted to do this old school and mix by hand. It didn't really take much kneading, so this wasn't a bad choice.

And so we have a nice little lump of dough to work with.

We cut it into pieces, rolled it out,

and shaped it into pretzels (some recipes recommend you to dunk these in a solution of baking soda and boiling water at this point to get them to brown up nicely, but due to laziness, we just cooked them on broil for a few minutes to get the brownness). We brushed on some butter, sprinkled on some course ground sea salt,

and then we baked them.  And devoured them.  Seriously these were amazing.

This was our gluten free batch, which didn't puff up quite as well and refused to brown, but still tasted quite good.  I know nothing about gluten free baking, so I just used the same recipe with different flour, but I'm pretty sure that you have to use something extra to get them to rise. That said, I'd eat these just as they were, and the friend we made them for like them, so I guess that's what counts.

And there you have it: homemade pretzels!

After all that work baking (not really, they were actually super easy) we were too lazy to make any sort of sauce for them.  Luckily for us, the pre-made cheese (or cheese-like) sauce that you can get at the grocery store was a perfect pairing.  You could also do mustard, or just enjoy the pretzels for the buttery goodness that they offer.  Either way.

If you aren't like me and you actually like the structure of a recipe, you can find it here. Or maybe my loose descriptions are good enough.

Either way, give it a try and let me know how they turn out!

A Recipe for Fall| Mikaela Joy: Savannah Lifestyle Photographer.

Fall is here- or at least it looks like it in Sam's Club (Yes I'm writing at work again). There are giant pumpkins on display, halloween candy, and even the first hints of Christmas items.  A lady called in at work a couple of days ago asking if we had Christmas trees yet, but I think she was getting a little ahead of herself.  Nonetheless, it looks like fall in here. Outside it's about the same as it has been all summer-- sunny and warm.  I think most people would find me crazy for complaining about that but I've always loved fall and winter.  I love boots and peacoats and snuggling up next to a warm fire.  I will say this, Savannah has better seasons than El Paso ever did.  Nonetheless I find myself craving snow capped mountains, and crisp morning air.  I guess I need to go back to Washington for that.

The thing that fall and winter holds for me that I can control though, are the traditions that come with it, and today I'm going to share one of my favorites-- Hot spice tea.  This is my mom's recipe and she starts making it every November at about the same time that she starts getting out the Christmas music.  I like to start a little earlier in the season.  I'm not very patient.

Before I post this recipe, I will add a bit of a disclaimer-- this recipe is not for everyone.  It's the kind of thing that you either love or hate.  I think it is spiced goodness, but my husband can't even stand the smell.  The same goes for my parents.

Ok enough of that, here's the recipe:

This is meant to be drank hot, but I prefer it chilled.  Either way, it's delicious.

Ok now let's hear the reviews-- who loves it and who hates it?  It'll be my first Poetry and Pesto case study.

Recipe-- Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

This week I have basically the perfect schedule at work.  I spend the early mornings working and then have the entire rest of the day to do whatever I want. I decided to spend today in the kitchen making one of my favorite comfort foods– Homemade chicken noodle soup. The recipe is pretty simple and the ingredients are mostly lined up in the picture, but here’s the rundown on how it is made:

First you need some chicken stock.  You can buy it from the store, but I would highly recommend making your own.  It is easy, healthier, and saves you money if you use leftovers to make it.  I like to make a whole chicken in the oven the night before (maybe I’ll do a post on that another time) and then use the leftovers for soup the next day.

All I do is take the leftover carcass (after picking as much meat off as I can) and throw it in a  stock pot and cover it with water.  Then I add whatever veggies I can find in my fridge (usually celery, carrots, a slice of onion, garlic) along with some herbs (usually just a bay leaf or two) and simmer it for a few hours (4-6).  The longer the simmer the more concentrated it gets, so the amount of time all depends on how strong of a flavor you want.  I add a little salt at then end of cooking time, to taste. During cooking the salt gets more concentrated, so adding at the end gives me a little more control of the flavor.  During the simmer sometimes I cover the pot and sometimes I don’t.  It doesn’t seem to change anything too much.

For making the stock, that is it! Talk about easy.  And if you don’t have a whole chicken to use, just roast some drumsticks and thighs in the oven and use them the same way.  I wouldn’t recommend using breast meat because you will come up with some very bland broth.

So once the broth is done I just strain out all of the bones and veggies and put the liquid back in the pot.  The steps for making the soup are basically the same as making the broth.  Cut up some carrots and celery and whatever other veggies in the fridge look good and throw them in.  Let the whole thing simmer for another hour or so (until the veggies are tender). When it’s done, add the leftover chicken meat back in along with some already cooked noodles, and there you have it– Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup!

Once you try this, I can almost guarantee you will never want to eat the stuff out of the can again. It’s got no creepy mystery meat, no chemicals and preservatives, just pure flavor. And there’s something about making a meal completely from scratch that just feels great.

When I make this recipe I usually make a lot.  It freezes very well (just leave out the noodles when you freeze) and makes for a quick easy dinner on those nights that I don’t have all this motivation to cook.

So that’s that.  I’m not going to post a cut and dry recipe of this, because this isn’t that kind of cooking.  Recipes are great, but it’s good to be flexible with the ingredients sometimes.  This isn’t an exact science, so put what you think sounds good into the pot and give it a try, you’ll most likely end up with something wonderful.