Tag Archive for: Bread

This holiday season was so confusing. All the holidays on the weekends, and the Rose Bowl game on the 2nd. What to make? Well, it felt like we should’ve made chili, but that didn’t happen.

Luckily, there’s almost always white flour in the house. Sorry, Atkins, South Beach, Dukan and Boulder, in general. Can’t seem to make it without gluten.

Been searching for a good Soft Pretzel recipe. I’ve tried several but don’t like butter in the dough. Started with King Arthur but thought it should be boiled like bagels. Anyway, here’s what we came up with. I was pretty happy with it.

Mary

 

Soft Pretzels

Inspired by King Arthur Flour’s Hot Buttered Pretzels

2 1/2 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons regular instant yeast
1 1/4 cup warm water*
8 cups water
2 tablespoons baking soda
coarse, kosher or pretzel salt
3 tablespoons butter, melted

*Use more water in the winter (or in a dry climate like Colorado), the lesser amount in the summer, and somewhere in between in the spring and fall. Your goal is a soft dough.

Place all of the dough ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer, and beat till well-combined. Knead the dough, by hand or machine, for about 5 minutes, till it’s soft, smooth, and quite slack. Flour the dough and place it in a bag, and allow it to rest for 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 500°F. Prepare two baking sheets by spraying them with vegetable oil spray, or lining them with parchment paper.

Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface, and divide it into eight equal pieces (about 70g, or 2 1/2 ounces, each).

Allow the pieces to rest, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Roll each piece of dough into a long, thin rope (about 28 to 30 inches long), and twist each rope into a pretzel.

Allow them to rest, uncovered, for 10 minutes.

While the dough is resting, bring 8 cups of water plus the baking soda to a boil in a large pot. Make sure the baking soda is thoroughly dissolved; if it isn’t, it’ll make your pretzels splotchy. Gently place 1-2 pretzels at a time in the boiling water for about 1 minute per side to set the dough.

Carefully remove from the pot. A chopstick works well to turn the pretzels, but a spatula works best to remove from the water.

Brush the pretzels with the melted butter. Sprinkle them lightly with pretzel salt (you can use kosher, but the pretzel salt really does make a BIG difference.) Keep brushing the butter on until you’ve used it all up; it may seem like a lot, but that’s what gives these pretzels their ethereal taste. Bake the pretzels for 8 to 12 minutes, or until they’re golden brown, reversing the baking sheets halfway through.

Eat the pretzels warm, or reheat them in an oven or microwave. Yield: 8 pretzels.

So you made your lovely French bread…today I want to share something that we make with that wonderful bread! These sandwiches are incredibly simple and flavorful This is something you can prep ahead of time and make even on a weekday. We used a spicy sausage (habanero pork sausage from our local Whole Foods) which was a nice complement to the sweet peppers. An addition of some tomato adds some depth; they basically disintegrate and create a wonderful sauce. It’s a really great dish for fall; hearty without being heavy. Yum! What do you think??

Kelly

Sausage Sandwiches with Peppers and Onions

3 Bell Peppers (Assorted Colors)
1 Large Onion
1 Tomato
1 Pound pork sausage
1 T Worcestershire Sauce
½ C Red Wine
1 T Olive oil
Salt and Pepper
1 baguette
Parmesan cheese (for garnish)
Slice the peppers and onions lengthwise, keeping the onions separate.

Slice the sausages on the diagonal using a good knife (putting the sausages in the freezer for a half an hour before you slice them will help.)

Preheat the oven to 350° and place the bread in the oven whole. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the sausage to the pan and brown on both sides, about 4 minutes.

Move the sausage to the outside of the pan, then add the onions to the center of the pan.

Allow the onions to soften, about 2 minutes, then add the peppers and toss the ingredients together.

Allow to cook about 1-2 minutes before adding the tomatoes and the liquid ingredients. Season with salt and pepper.

Cook to reduce the sauce by half.

Slice the bread in half lengthwise and cut into sandwich sized pieces. Serve the sausage and pepper mixture on the open bread making sure to spoon some sauce on top. Garnish with some grated parmesan cheese.

Enjoy!
PS. Don’t worry if there are leftovers, we will show you a way to use them coming up!!