Simple Soft Pretzles

I am so sorry that this blog has been on the back burner (food blog pun) for so long. I have just gotten so busy with this little baby on the way, and all of my other responsibilities. BUT! I have quite a few recipes to share in the next few weeks, so be excited for that!

Today, I will be sharing one of my most favorite foods to make. Alex, my husband, asks for these almost weekly, and I cannot resist. We have homemade pretzels quite often, and I don't even feel bad.

These pretzels are INCREDIBLY easy, and only take 5 ingredients.... you read that right. FIVE! And the best part is, I bet you $5, you already have all the ingredients in your pantry right now! Score!

I adapted my recipe from Sallys Baking Addiction. She just uses whole wheat flour, and brushes them with an egg... And I don't. haha. But I'm so glad I found her blog, because this recipe changed my life. http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2012/12/25/30-minute-whole-wheat-pretzels/

Here are what the delicious little morsels look like straight out of the oven!

Now, tell me you aren't drooling and ready to find out how to make these bad boys!!

First, you are going to take your packet (Or 2 and 1/4 tsp) of yeast (I like to use the instant rise kind) and stir it into a a bowl with 1.5 cups of warm water. I don't worry too much about the temperature, you just don't want it to be tap cold, and not boiling hot. When I first started baking, I was so afraid of yeast. But after using it lots and lots, it really is a friendly ingredient. Don't be scared! Start using it now, and you can thank me later! Now, once the yeast and water have been mixed up real nice, it should be kinda bubbly! And thats a good good sign. It means that your yeast is active! YAY! So once we've got that going for us, add 1 Tbsp of sugar and 1 tsp of salt to the mix and stir!

Wanna hear another amazing reason why you just HAVE to make these pretzels? There is no need for a mixer!! You can mix it totally by hand. Now you have no excuses!

After the water, yeast, sugar and salt are all combined nicely, you are slowly going to start adding your flour. I add 3 cups, 1 cup at a time. Mix in your electric mixer, or with a wooden spoon until combined and the dough is no longer sticky. You may have to add more flour, and I usually add 1/4 cup at a time and mix well so that it doesn't get too dry. Poke the dough with your hand and if the dough doesn't stick, but bounces back, then you are ready to knead!

If using a mixer, I just put on the dough hook at let it for about 2-3 minutes. If kneading by hand, knead on a well floured surface for 3-5 minutes. Once the dough is kneaded, start breaking off sections and rolling them out like little snakes like you did in elementary school when playing with play-doh! So easy. This is a great time to involve your little ones! Who doesn't love playing with dough and making snakes!! Once you have a long snake/rope, make your pretzel shape. You can go traditional, just twist them, or even just leave them as long sticks! I've even made heart shapes and letters with these pretzels! HAVE FUN!

Once all your dough has been formed how you want it, bake for 10 minutes at 425F degrees. Then turn the oven to broil and bake for 3-5 minutes. Keep an eye on them while broiling, you do not want these babies to burn! Allow them to cool and brush with melted butter if you want to add cinnamon and sugar or salt. Serve immediately, or store in an air tight container and enjoy later (Although I doubt you will be able to resist). When I store them, I reheat them in the microwave, wrapped in a damp paper towel, it helps restore the moisture. You may also freeze them!

Okay, so how easy was that!!! Please make these and let me know what you think!!

Red Curry Mint Thai Noodles

This recipe is adapted from this blog. 

I had a dear friend, Jacquie Lyman, post a delicious looking recipe on Facebook the other day and the second I saw it I just knew I HAD to put my spin on it and try my hand at some oriental cooking. 

From the second I mentioned this blog idea to my husband he was so excited because he knew that I would be expanding my cooking repertoire, and trying a ton of different things. In the past I had tried a few Thai or Chinese dishes, but I never go too crazy because I never really had the ingredients on hand. With oriental cooking you need so many different flavors and sauces and spices that it makes it hard to be frugal. But with the hopes that this blog will take off and become something amazing I feel much more inclined to buy the ingredients that I would normally ignore, and try the dishes that typically I would deem too expensive or impractical. Not to say that this dish is either of those things. I was surprised when I actually went to purchase all of the ingredients that I didn't have on hand, that I didn't spend more than $10. Which, if you have ever eaten out at a Thai restaurant, you will know that $10 will maybe get you one small curry dish. So I felt great in knowing that my $10 was buying me some oriental staples that I could use multiple times to make many tasty dishes. Definitely worth the small investment if you ask me!

In the original recipe it is supposed to come out more like a soup, which would also be amazing, but I wanted the noodles to be stickier and more like a Pad Thai so I cut way back on the liquid.  I think it turned out perfectly and would be delicious with some basmati rice and some peanut chicken! 

So here is what you will need to recreate this dish:

2 13 oz cans of coconut milk (at least one can needs to be full fat, not light)

1-2 tbsp Thai red curry paste
1 bunch of cilantro, stems and leaves chopped separately
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, thinly sliced
1.5 cups of chicken stock
6 mint leaves
1 tbsp ginger root, grated
1.5 tbsp fish sauce
1 8oz package of wide rice noodles
2 cups bok choy, chopped
1 cup bean sprouts

1 can of water chestnuts, drained and rinsed

4 green onions, minced

1 cup of carrots, grated

To Start, Heat up your sauté pan over med-high heat. Open up the coconut milk that is full fat and scoop the fat and oil off the top of the can (should be about 3 Tbsp) and heat it up until it is sizzling. while it's heating up, add your desired amount of curry paste and it will dissolve into the coconut oil. Add your cilantro stems and chicken. Let those cook together for about 5 minutes, or until your chicken is no longer pink.

Add the coconut juice from the first can as well as the entire contents of the second can of coconut milk, water chestnuts, and fish sauce. Grate the ginger into the broth (easier to do if the ginger root is frozen, plus your ginger will stay fresh FOREVER if you freeze it). Turn the heat down to low and simmer for 20 minutes, until the broth has begun to thicken slightly. Add your chicken stock, rice noodles, bok choy and bean sprouts into the broth where they will quickly soften in about 5 minutes. Add your mint leaves and let them simmer in the broth for 5 minutes. Remove the mint leaves before serving. Add all but 2 tablespoons of the cilantro leaves and stir gently.

Ladle into large bowls and garnish with the green onions, grated carrots and the remaining cilantro.

The Verdict:

Alex and I both liked this dish, I think I had really high expectations, and so I was slightly disappointed that it wasn't spicier, but that is obviously an easy fix. I only used 1Tbsp of the curry paste, so next time I will use 2! We will definitely make this again!

Southwest Breakfast Burrito

I love days where my husband doesn't have to go into work. He works at a bank and usually gets one full day off every week. I always cherish these mornings, just lounging in bed, and being lazy. But the best thing is, I have time to make him a tasty breakfast!

This week for our fun breakfast I entered the kitchen not really knowing what I wanted to make. I peered inside out fridge and saw so many left overs. A little bit of carne asada from tacos last week, some sweet potato from sunday dinner, half a zucchini from my pasta dish last week. I decided the best way to use up all these yummy ingredients was to make a tasty breakfasty burrito.

The way i usually cook is to look at what I have on hand, and kinda just throw it all together and usually something really tasty happens. And that was my exact approach for this burrito. I would probably never make this burrito the same way again, just because it all depends on what is readily available to me at the time. Something you will learn about me is that I am so not the type of person to run out to the store for one or two ingredients to complete a recipe. I will improvise and tweak things so that it fits what I already have in my pantry. It saves a lot in the budget department and also makes cooking just a little more interesting.

So I will give you the generic recipe for my Breakfast Burritos, and I will also include different things I could include next time.

Southwest Breakfast Burrito

Serves 6

Ingredients

Tortillas (We like the High Fiber Whole Wheat Ole brand)
1 tsp olive oil
4-5 Eggs
1/4 cup skim milk (any milk will do)
6 oz. cooked meat (I used carne asada, but it would also be great with leftover chicken)
6 oz. cooked potato (I used sweet potato, but any kind will do)
1/2 cup black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 zucchini, chopped into quarters
2 cloves of garlic, minced
4 small sweet peppers, chopped (if using a regular sweet pepper, use half of 1 big pepper)
1/2 onion, minced
1/2 avocado
1 roma tomato
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions
Start by heating your olive oil in a large skillet on med-high heat. Add the zucchini and onion and peppers and let soften for 3-5 minutes. Add your garlic, salt and pepper, black beans, meat and potatoes. Let all of this cook together and get warmed through for about 2 minutes. Meanwhile crack your eggs in a bowl and add milk and whisk together. Add your eggs to the hot skillet and begin scrambling the eggs. Watch closely, and while your eggs are cooking, chop your tomatoes and avocado into small cubes, combine in a bowl with some  more salt and pepper.

Once your eggs are done cooking, remove from heat and fill a tortilla with the egg mixture, top mixture with tomato and avocado. You may also add cheese, sour cream, salsa or hot sauce at this point.


Roll up burrito style and you're good to go!

Enjoy!

Lemony Chicken Pasta

Lemony Chicken Pasta

I can't believe that I am actually publishing my very first recipe on this blog! This is something that I have always wanted to do, but honestly I have never felt like my food is that great or whatever. But, I figured that I do have a talent to share, and I might as well go out on a limb and try this whole food blogger dealio.

So today I was craving pasta (shocker.. seems like that is all i'm craving at this stage of the pregnancy... haha) but I also wanted to use up some of the million lemons that Hope brought over last week. So I came up with this easy One Pan Lemon Pasta. 

The first thing I like to do when starting a recipe is to get out all of my ingredients. For this recipe you will need:

• 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1 inch chunks and seasoned 
• 1 teaspoon of kosher salt plus lots of freshly ground black pepper
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 cup of zucchini sliced in quarters
• 1/2 a yellow onion, diced small
• 2 cups (16 oz) of canned crushed tomatoes Italian Style
• (Optional: Regular Canned Tomatoes and 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp oregano, 1 tsp basil, and 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes)
• 1 cup of water
• 1/2 pound of penne pasta (about two cups)
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced; juiced lemon should yield about 1/4 cup of lemon juice
• 1 lemon sliced for garnish
• 1 cup of parmesan cheese

Start out by heating up your olive oil. Once the oil is hot, add your cubes of chicken and brown on all sides. 

So I didn't have traditional canned tomatoes, so I decided to use some of my canned tomatoes that I canned myself a few months ago. And since my tomatoes weren't seasoned or crushed when I canned them I just did that myself. Super easy.

If this is how you plan on doing your tomatoes just puree them and then add 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp oregano, 1 tsp basil, and 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Once the chicken is all browned add your minced garlic, zucchini and onion and let them get soft.

Once your onions are translucent and the zucchini is soft add the cup of water and the 2 cups of pureed tomatoes and the uncooked pasta. Turn the heat up to High and bring everything to a boil. Let everything boil until the pasta is tender.

While my pasta was cooking I zested one lemon and juiced it. And also sliced up an extra lemon I had for garnish. 

Once the pasta was tender, I added the lemon juice and lemon zest and lemon slices and sprinkled the whole thing with some tasty cheese! 

I am so proud of how this turned out! Best thing about it in my mind is that it was all cooked in one pan! No need to drain the pasta even and dirty a colander. Also I love how the lemon in this brightens up the flavors and makes everything zing -- in a great way! 

I hope you give this easy recipe a try! And there is so many things you could do to mix this up and make it work with what you have in your pantry at the time. You could substitute the chicken with hamburger or sausage. You could leave out the tomatoes and just do chicken stock. and you could change up the veggies in this dish. Zucchini, carrots, broccoli, yellow squash, olives! Anything!

Enjoy!

So Excited!

Announcement Time!

Ever since I quit my job to get ready for our little baby, I have struggled with boredom and self worth. I'm not used to sitting around at home while my husband goes off to work every day. I enjoyed working, and contributing to my family. And now that I'm not doing that in the traditional sense, i can get a little down on myself. But today, as I was surfing Pinterest and making my grocery list for this week, I got to thinking.

The way I see it, I have a pretty decent talent as a cook as well as a photographer. Not to mention my awesome husband just bought me a sparkly new KitchenAid Mixer for Christmas. I figure that is a decent enough combination to start a food blog!

I plan to start posting a new recipe once a week, and depending on how well things go, maybe more than that!

I'm excited for this new challenge. I know that it will help me feel like I have a purpose in staying at home, not to mention it will help me improve my talents.

I hope you are looking forward to this as much as I am!

Stay tuned for my first recipe!