Lately blogworld

I failed to take pictures of my latest creative endeavours, but here's what I've been doing.

I made my first apron! I know, I know, this may not sound exciting to most of you, but I am pumped about it. I haven't used it yet because I really don't want to get it dirty :) I'll post pics in a later post.

I made over 50 yeast rolls for our NYE party we had. They were a success and super yummy! I will share the recipe for those later as well.

I introduced the boyfriends mom to yoyo's. You know, the cute little fabric things that you can make virtually anything out of (I'm slowly learning with each new article read!) I actually am making one of my lovely girlfriends a cool necklace since an unamed Wal-Mart supercenter LOST her photo present! Rude! Anyway, she will LOVE the necklace I'm pretty certain. I will take some photos of it and post later!

And, lastly (but most wonderfully), I made homeade soft pretzels. They were very very good! We have a small private owned shop in our mall that makes pretzels, and let me tell you, these are just as good (but MUCH cheaper!)! I'll go ahead and post the recipe below!

I start back to school Monday, so I'm sure my post will be few! I'll try my best though :)

Hope you enjoy!


Soft Pretzels

You will need:
1 large cookie sheet
a meat thermometer or candy thermometer
mixing bowl

Supplies:
1 C water
2T Yeast (I always use Active Dry)
2 t honey
2 1/2 C milk
1 stick butter
1/2 C honey
4 t salt
8 C Flour (you can use wheat or white)
extra butter and salt for the topping

Directions:
Mix 1 C water, yeast, 2t honey. Stir well to dissolve yeast, set aside. In medium saucepan, melt butter, 1/2 C honey, 2 1/2 C milk, and 4t salt and bring to 120 degrees (make sure you watch your temp!) Mix the yeast into the pan mixture. Put your mixture into a large bowl and add the flour 2 C at a time. After mixed well, knead the dough for 5-10 minutes. Place in greased bowl and let rise 1-1 1/2 hours. Punch down to get all the air out. (For this next step, I made sure my hands had a little oil on them, and my rolling surface) Pull off a "fist sized" ball, roll into long snake, twist the top, then pull the ends down to meet the bottom (I just looked at pictures on how to form a pretzel, and I also just cut the "snakes" and made little nuggests, which were really good!) Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until brown on top. Brush with butter and sprinkle with salt. You can also sprinkle them with cinnamon/sugar, or make a glaze. I served mine with cheese sauce and mustard! Very simple and fun for kids to help with!