Pretzels - Taste & Create

For Taste & Create this month, I was paired with foodie plus 4. There were lots of yummy recipes to choose from. But I couldn't resist the pretzels. I love stadium pretzels and these looked so good. I was going to make some mustard dip to serve with them but have been very unmotivated lately...especially with my blogging. So we are eating them plain. They are good. And so easy too. I was shocked at how much they taste like the real thing.

Pretzels
Makes about 12 medium pretzels.

1 package active dry yeast
1/8 cup warm water
1 1/3 cups warm water
1/3 cup light brown sugar
5 cups flour
6 cups water (for boiling)
12 Tbsp. baking soda
lots of coarse or kosher salt

Preheat oven to 475°F.
Sprinkle 2 baking sheets with coarse or kosher salt and set aside.
In a mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in 1/8 cup warm water.
Stir in remaining 1 1/3 cups warm water, brown sugar, and flour.
Mix until smooth, then knead dough (with the kneading attachment on your mixer or by hand on a floured surface) until smooth and elastic (about 3 minutes).
In a wide saucepan, boil the water with baking soda.
Divide the dough and start rolling the pieces like a pencil. Shape as desired.

Gently lower pretzels into boiling water (we did two at a time) and let cook for about 20 seconds or until dough is slightly yellow in color.

Remove pretzel with a slotted spoon and place on salted baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt, and bake for 8-10 minutes.

Thanks for the delicious recipe my fellow Taste & Create partner. I am also going to have to try that poundcake that I had a hard time passing up too. It sure looks like a diet killer and I just couldn't do that one since I have been a good girl and working out all week. But I will someday soon.

Puppy Chow

INGREDIENTS:
9 cups Chex Cereal
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS:
1. Mix chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter together in a bowl. Microwave (uncovered) for 1 minute. Stir together and microwave another 30 seconds. Stir until smooth. Stir in vanilla. Pour mixture over cereal, stirring until cereal is completely covered.
2. Pour cereal into storage container (huge ziploc, tupperware or a doubled up garbage bag). Add powdered sugar and shake like crazy until well coated.
3. Spread puppy chow out on table and let cool for about 30 minutes. Put in refrigerator unil serving.

I doubled the recipe for a party and have a ton of puppy chow that I am sure will be eaten because it is so delicious. I also used a grocery store paper bag to mix the powdered sugar in and then just tossed the bag (very easy clean up). I got this recipe from my pal who served it at her party a couple of weeks ago. Both my youngest and I inhaled it and knew that I had to have it for our party!

I originally posted this recipe on 7/26/08 on my old blog.