Soft Pretzel Recipe

• 4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 1/4 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
•  
• 1/2 cup baking soda
• 4 cups hot water
• Coarse Salt. Or cinnamon and sugar

In a small bowl, dissolve yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar in warm water. Let sit until frothy, I usually wait about 15 minutes.

In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, and salt. Make a well in the center of flour and add the oil and yeast mixture. Mix and form into a dough. If the mixture is dry, add one or two tablespoons of water. Knead the dough until smooth, and elastic,  about 7 to 8 minutes. Oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a tea towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). In a large bowl, dissolve baking soda in hot water.
When risen, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into equal pieces. 

Roll each piece into a rope 

and twist into a pretzel shape. Once all of the dough is all shaped, 

dip each pretzel into the baking soda solution and place on a baking sheet.

Bake in preheated oven for 8 minutes, until browned.

Rub Butter onto pretzels and sprinkle salt on top, if you would rather have cinnamon and sugar pretzels add that after the butter instead.

We decided to enjoy our pretzels both ways! We had the salted ones with some cheddar cheese soup that I had in the pantry, it was perfect! These are so simple and way cheaper to make than to buy from the mall!

Rainy Day Chicken Soup

I am the biggest fan of rainy days and thunderstorms, and always make a warm cozy day out of them. Warm cup of chai, fleece blanket, plants vs zombies, and hot chicken soup. *love*

My soup is super easy to make. I always use my crockpot when I get the chance, because everything that goes in always comes out delish!

To start, take a few chicken breasts, some chicken bouillon and water (or stock), a couple stalks of celery chopped up and a couple just halved (you'll take them out at the end and toss), 2 big carrots chopped up, and half an onion diced.
Put that all in the crockpot early in the morning, to be on low all day.
Add fresh parsley and thyme (dried's ok too, but fresh is so much better!), dried bay leaves (2 or 3), sea salt and fresh pepper. Don't add too much salt at the beginning, but check it later on, because the flavors all mingle together so well, too much salt at the beginning can ruin it. Leave that all on low for 6-8 hours.
Pull out the chicken when it's cooked through (around hour 4) to shred it with forks, then put that back in the pot.
When the celery and carrots are tender, it's ready!

(While my soup was simmering, I whipped up a double batch of bread dough- 3 loaves, 1 dozen rolls, and 8 homemade hot pockets- recipes coming soon! You can also see my hard boiled eggs cooling in the sink... my kids love to eat them straight with a dash of salt.)

Take the bay leaves out (or don't, and the finder does the dishes), and serve with a slice of buttered fresh homemade bread (in another post).

Days like these call for some knitting or crocheting, can't wait till Amanda teaches me how!

-Melanie