Football Food: Pretzel Bites

I saw this recipe on beantown's blog and I knew it was right up my alley.  The recipe wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be, and it was really delicious.  It's also something you can make up in advance and stores well overnight, which is a plus when cooking for a crowd.  Make them mini and you get a lot of bang for the buck, and they go much further! 

So...if that fit's your criteria, here is the recipe for....

Pretzel Bites

Ingredients:  1 1/2 c. warm water, 2 T. brown sugar, 1pkg active dry yeast, 6 T. butter (melted), 2 1/2 t. salt, 4 1/2 – 5 c. flour, 2 qts water, 1/4 c. baking soda, 1 egg, beaten + 1 tbsp water, sea salt for topping

Directions:

1.  Mix brown sugar, yeast, melted butter and water. Give a quick mix,  let sit for 5 minutes or until slightly foamy.
2.  Add salt and flour to wet mixture. Mix on low speed with a dough hook (I did this part by hand), gradually increasing the speed to medium. Continue mixing until all flour is encorporated and the dough is pulling away from the sides and bottom of the bowl. If needed, add more flour until the dough pulls away from the bowl and is no longer really sticky. Transfer dough to a clean work area, knead by hand for 3-5 minutes, shape into a ball.
3.  Grease a medium bowl with oil. Toss dough into bowl, then flip to coat all sides with oil. Cover with plastic wrap. Let sit in a warm location for an hour or until dough is doubled in size.  I sometimes put the dough in the fridge to stop it from rising further if I'm not quite ready to make my pretzels. 

4.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil. Carefully and quickly, add baking soda (this may splatter).
5.  Divide dough into 8 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a long snake. Using kitchen sheers, cut 1″ pieces. Set aside. Repeat process with all dough. Keep the remaining dough covered with plastic wrap until ready to roll and cut.

6.  Prepare a baking sheet with silpat or parchment paper. Whisk one egg together with 1 T water, set aside. Boil 10-15 pieces of cut dough at a time for 30-45 seconds. Remove with a slotted spoon, transfering to your prepared baking sheet. Repeat process with remaining dough pieces.
7.  Brush egg wash over dough balls. Immediately sprinkle with course sea salt.

8.  Bake for 15 min. (until golden brown).
9.  Serve with mustard and cheese dip. Store any remaining pretzel bites in an airtight container.

Scrapbook Pages from Germany and Austria

I'm STILL working on my album from my European vacation a few summers back.  I'm determined to finish it before the summer, but it's not moving at the speed necessary to reach this goal.  I am enjoying reliving my vacation with each page.  Here is my portion from Germany. 

We spent an evening in Andernach, Germany.  Our hotel room touched one of the fortress walls from this ancient city.  The town overlooks the Rhine River, and passing boats, and there was a park with ginormous red roses, fir trees, and old fortress walls and towers we were able to explore.  I loved West Germany, the pretzels (that inspired today's earlier post), the gummy bears, and it was so clean, and quaint.  It was the place I was most surprised about loving because I had not given it much thought.  It was the most 'fairy tale' of all the places we visited on our European trip.

This is a cruise we took down the Rhine River.  This river runs past some of the 30+ castles in this area of West Germany, and we also passed the rock famous for the Siren's beautiful (and distracting) songs.  Luckily, our boat made it around the bend (bottom right picture on the right hand page) before heading towards Austria. 

We only spent a day or so in Austria at Fernpass, and then Innsbruck (home of the winter Olympics a few years back). 

Lent: Prayer Pretzels

I know pretzels are sort of the 'lent' food.  This is a little history I found about 'the Lenten pretzels.'  Due to dietary restrictions the recipe that originally created these met all those criterias, and the shape is a traditional arm's prayer stance.  I figured today was the day to try out this recipe I found at Gooseberry Patch for the 'best' pretzels ever, and I've been wanting to try out my own version after my trip to Germany...not that I haven't had pretzels MANY times before...or after my trip, but I never thought about making my own until I went on a quest to mimic foods I ate in Europe.  This recipe is really easy, and really delicious.  I don't have my 'arm fold' quite up to par, but I made smaller pretzels, so I'm blaming this on my twisting technique.  They taste great any way you twist it! 
Soft Pretezel Recipe:
Ingredients: 
1 envelope of active dry yeast, 1 1/2 c. warm water (110 degrees-I used milk), 1 T. sugar, 2 t. salt, 4 c. flour, 1 egg yolk, 1 T. water, 1/4 c. kosher salt. 
Instructions: 
1.  Mix yeast with water. 
2.  Stir in sugar and salt until dissolved.
3.  Add flour, mix well.  Turn on floured surface.  Knead 5 minutes. 
4.  Divde in to 16 pieces, and roll each out like a fat worm.  Twist twice.

5.  Fold the loose ends back.  Place on a greased baking sheet.

6.  Brush with egg wash/water mix, and sprinkle with kosher salt (you can also make sweet pretzels by sprinkling these with cinnamon/sugar). 
7.  Bake at 425 for 25-20 minutes, until golden.

My Europe Online Albums

Here is a links to all of my Europe Photos (well, the ones I put on Shutterfly at least).
Europe Trip Part One:
http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=a8e10d9cf40c5b046cdd16a80fdf8c46&sid=0AZMmrNw0YsmLIcA
Europe Trip Part Two:
http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=0c0543df255ae80bcf4ab00f16ca9e1e&sid=0AZMmrNw0YsmLIvA
Europe Trip Part Three:
http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=309bdf4c1eb8f0af&sid=0AZMmrNw0YsmLI-A
Europe Trip Part Four:
http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=1ca91f32585888a66d9889752d9a603c&sid=0AZMmrNw0YsmLJBg

Day Six: Driving Through Germany

We drove along the Rhine River for awhile on the road towards Austria, and we continued to see castles regularly. Each castle had it's own personality, and no doubt, it's own story, this one was built in the middle of the river.

The castles didn't stop when we left the Rhine River, we saw them all along the drive through Germany, and on into the German Alps, where the Neuschwanstein Castle is located (Disneyworld's castle model). Get out your magnifying glasses, this one is in the middle, towards the bottom of the picture (it was on the opposite side of the bus, so even though we got closer, this was the clearest picture I could capture.)

Day Six: Rhine River Cruise

We boarded a boat for an hour and a half rainy cruise down the Rhine River. The Rhine River was, and is a big route for shipping vessels. We saw about 15 of the MANY castles built here a long time ago to tax these ships passing through. Now, week long cruises also head down this LONG river on a regular basis with vacationers.

We also passed those timbered villages I love so much, with the uniform brown hues. In Germany, most of the churches have gold roosters perched on top of the steeples. There were some pretty interesting little villages, including the smallest village where the church is also half pub. I guess that makes it easy to get the wine for the Lord's Supper.

We passed the Lorelei Rock, which is a rock perched along a pretty sharp curve in the river, that caused a lot of wrecks in the years past, and started the tales about the Siren that distracted the sailors from their intended route.

Day Five/Six: Rhineland, Germany

I guess it was about a year ago I started wanting to visit Germany. It's not somewhere I'd given much thought prior to this, maybe it's the soft pretzels that got to me (I LOVE these), but I added it to the wish list when we were looking for the right tour. If you have ever been to Epcot, and you've gone to 'Germany' in their lands, this IS what this precious little area of West Germany is all about. There are roses the size of my hands (fine, my hands aren't very big, but these roses were as large as peonies). The roses are everywhere.

The grounds are immaculate, and there are timbered houses dotting the hillsides. What I didn't expect in Germany were all the wine fields, vineyards lined the sides of the road. I LOVE West Germany. I wasn't expecting it to be so quaint. I wasn't expecting it to be so peaceful. I wasn't expecting it to be such a fairy tale of castles, and small villages. Granted, this is 'West' Germany, but it's also the pieces I wanted to see. I've seen cities. I wanted the Rhineland Valley. This was the most tranquil part of my trip. GETTING to our hotel we took the famous Autobaun with no speed limits (but lots of traffic jams). They say it's safe because everyone knows their limits, but the traffic sure was backed up for miles. (Italy, and Germany had TONS of traffic jams, and apparently time predictions go out the window when traveling around these countries because of these issues). We rerouted one portion of our trip, and made it to town in a reasonable amount of time. We stayed in this sleepy little town along the Rhineland River, in a hotel, squished between the old castle walls, and an old fortress wall tower.

We had a balcony overlooking the park (these are everywhere, and they are so clean), and the Rhine River with boats coming and going, and little villages across the way, where you could see the white church steeples peeking up above the green fur trees.

We arrived in the evening, and walked up and down the river in the evening, and again in the morning. there were towers, and ruins throughout the town. Every rest stop we went to along the way, the hotel, and all the places we entered were very clean, and efficiently run. I will say that I found some of the people quite aggressive, and service providers were sometimes more expressive regarding their negative emotions (this is a nice way of saying, some people were a little mean), but there were more pleasant than unpleasant circumstances, it was just a little 'different.'

Day Six: Rhineland to Innsbruck, Austria

Today we planned to take a Rhine cruise with views of "the Lorelei Rock, hilltop castles, half-timbered wine villages, and terraced vineyards." When we booked this trip, one of the things I definitely wanted to see where some 'castles in Germany.' Check! In the afternoon, we ride along the Autobahn to Austria.
The following is Wikipedia's description of the Lorelei Rock:
The Lorelei (also written as Loreley) is a rock on the eastern bank of the Rhine near St. Goarshausen, Germany, which soars some 120 meters above the water line. It marks the narrowest part of the river between Switzerland and the North Sea. A very strong current and rocks below the waterline have caused many boat accidents there.
Lorelei is also the name of one of the beautiful Rhine Maidens who lured navigators of this river to their dooms with their alluring singing, much as the ancient Greek Sirens did.
In 1395 the Loreley showed up as vineyard of the Counts of Katzenelnbogen.
The name comes from the old German words "lureln" (Rhine dialect for "murmuring") and the Celtic term "ley" (rock). The translation of the name would therefore be: "murmur rock" or "murmuring rock". The heavy currents, and a small waterfall in the area (still visible in the early 19th century) created a murmuring sound, and this combined with the special echo the rock produces which acted as a sort of amplifier, then gave name to the rock itself.[1] The murmuring is hard to hear today due to the urbanization of the area. Other theories attribute the name to the many accidents, by combining the word "luren" (lurk) with the same "ley" ending, with the translation "lurking rock".

Day Five: Amsterdam to Rhineland, Germany

Today we are headed on a tour of the city of Amsterdam, and going on a canal cruise. Several people have told me the most unique thing about Europe (compared to the US) is that so many of the cities are built along canals. I never would have placed Amsterdam on my list of places to visit, but I'm so excited to be able to check it off as a place I've visited now that I've done a little research. This should give a lot more meaning to The Diary of Anne Frank, and the setting for so much of WW2's history. This evening we should have headed south towards Germany.