Auntie Annie's Copycat Pretzels

I love Amish soft pretzels.  They are chief among comfort foods.  My mom has an Amish farmer's market close to her house in Maryland, where the Pennsylvania Dutch come and sell things from meat to pickles to my favorite, pretzels.  Every time I visit her I try and make time to visit the market.  Last time I brought a few of the pretzels home so I could savor their delicious flavor. They were gone all too soon, however.

Enter my search to find the recipe for those very same Amish pretzels.  I decided I would scour the Internet to hopefully find them.  I ran across many recipes but landed on one that looked particularly good.  The reviews were good so I decided to print it out.  Unfortunately I didn't save the link, as I just copied the recipe into a word document and printed it off. These pretzels, although not exactly as delicious as the authentic Amish ones, are still very, very good.

Also, I changed one small thing from the original, and I will note this in the recipe.

Auntie Annie's Copycat Pretzels

Dough Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups water (approximately 105 degrees F)
1 Tablespoon yeast

1/4 cup brown sugar
4 cups minus 2 Tablespoons all purpose flour*
2 Tablespoons vital wheat gluten

Grain-Free Garlic Rosemary Crackers

I wanted to bake something today, and I didn't feel like making sweets. I happened to have almond meal and this recipe just struck me. It is from the  Food Renegade website.  I found it today, written and put in my recipe binder.  I had actually forgotten where I found it until I looked it up just now.

  

 First I mixed almond meal, salt, garlic powder, rosemary, eggs and butter.  It formed a play-doh like lump.

The original recipe suggested pressing the dough into a pan, but I just flattened circles on my stoneware.  I made sure to make them very thin.

After the first two batches, I just went for it and tried rolling the dough on my counter.  After I rolled it out to a thin patty, I cut it into small squares.  It was pretty sticky, but I think because it had butter, it came off the counter pretty well with a spatula.  

Toasted Italian Bread Crumbs

I decided to make toasted breadcrumbs for a couple of reasons.  I had leftover homemade wheat bread and it was getting stale.  Also, I toasted them because most times that I've used soft breadcrumbs in recipes I've been displeased with the results.  I have only used these on baked chicken so far, but they seemed to go over well in my house.  You can adjust the seasonings to your taste, but I used ingredients on the back of the 4-C whole wheat breadcrumb can as my guide.

First I put cut up pieces of bread into my food processor in batches. I used my Ninja, which I love! 

 Then I put the crumbs in a bowl and added the seasonings and Parmesan cheese and stirred to mix.

Kale Chips

Kale Chips.  They seem to be all the rage, and really, they are delicious!  I love Kale Chips and so does my daughter.  My husband and son are not interested, but that's OK with me!  That just means more for my daughter and I.  These chips are very easy to make.  I just buy a bag of washed and cut kale for about $2.50.  It's a huge bag so it really seems like a great buy. I bought mine at Wal-Mart.

In addition to the kale, you'll need olive oil (extra virgin or regular), salt and a big bowl.

I preheated my oven to 375.  Next, I put about six or seven cups of kale in my large bowl.  You will have to remove the ribs from the kale if you want it to cook evenly.  Then I stirred in just enough olive oil to coat the leaves.

Knox Blox

 My kids really like jello, but I thought I'd give a try at making a healthy version.  On one website I recently saw the idea to make jello using pineapple juice.  So out to the store I went and bought some pineapple juice and Knox Gelatine.

Instead of needing to look up the recipe online, all I had to do was flip the box over to discover their recipe for Knox Blox.  It's their version of Jello Jigglers and I'm assuming it's been around a lot longer.  I've never really worked with plain gelatin so this was a first for me.

 

I started by measuring three cups of juice.  I then put this in the microwave and heated to boiling.