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Sunday, January 5, 2014

#snowmygosh

it snowed a lot today.
 no joke...i saw someone cross country skiing outside -- 
so i made some bread.
and also cookies ( :
i told my mom i'd do a better job of blogging so i'm starting today!
it's supposed to be super-cold tomorrow, but (of course) work is never canceled for me so we'll see how that goes...

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

auntie anna's pretzels.

i went to the mall a couple weekends ago and decided i needed to make some pretzels.
so i did.
the recipe is pretty easy.

ingredients:

1 1/2 cups warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 package yeast
4 cups flour
4 tablespoons melted butter

10 cups water
2/3 cup baking soda

1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon water
coarse salt (if you don't have it, you can use the regular kind but it's pretty cheap and worth the investment!)

directions:

pour 1 1/2 cups of warm water into a bowl. add 1 tablespoon of sugar and 2 teaspoons of salt and stir it all up. then add 1 package (or 2 1/4 teaspoons) of yeast into the mix and let it sit for about 5 minutes until it gets kind of foamy. 

then add about 4 cups of flour and 4 tablespoons of melted butter (1/2 stick). mix it in little by little. if you have a dough hook, you can use that. otherwise just do it by hand (like i do). keep kneading it until it's all good and mixed together. this part should take a few minutes.

roll the dough into a ball, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rise for about an hour.

now's a good time to preheat the oven: 450 degrees...or 400 if your oven is super-hot like mine. you can also get your cookie sheets ready. you'll probably need two (or just bake one batch at a time) so line them with parchment paper.

also bring 10 cups of water to a boil and add 2/3 cup of baking soda. 

while that's working, roll your pretzel dough into pretzel-like shapes. you should be able to make 8 medium sized pretzels or more smaller ones. when those are ready, put each pretzel in the boiling water for 30 seconds -- one at a time. that's what gives it the nice coating when it bakes.

after they get their baking soda bath, put the pretzels on the parchment paper-lined cookie sheet and brush them with a mixture of 1 egg yolk and 1 tablespoon water. add coarse salt on top. 

bake them for 12-14 minutes (or 10 if your oven is super-hot like mine).

and voila. homemade pretzels ( :

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

i am getting so old.

can you believe i'm 26?
i can't. ugh.
luckily i have cool people who made me feel extra-special
instead of just extra-old.

it started with a few of my coworkers.
one of them made me lemon raspberry cupcakes -- 
another one baked me some cookies but i already ate them and forgot to take a picture.

then i got some fruit from ruth!
(i put it in the fridge and another one of my coworkers dropped it on the floor and broke the handle -- you can see a little bit below)
but mostly it had this awesome chocolate pineapple bunny -- 
 
then a flower bouquet from m+d+d -- 
 and some awesome bday texts (and a midnight call) from surrah -- 
 i watched some 24 with sean, played some games -- 
 ...and dustin may have made this in honor of my birthday.
still not sure about that one. 
anyway i'm getting pretty old but i'm not dead yet.