Those are Tasty

*Forgive the screwy color, fonts and formatting. Sometimes Blogger is such a pain. **

Hannah loves to read cookbooks. Especially children's cookbooks (thank you, public library!).

She will read through an entire 200 page cookbook, remarking "Those are tasty" for each recipe, even when it isn't appropriate.

Like this:

H: Ooh, look at this! How to make Butter! Those are tasty!

or

H: Cinnamon Applesauce! Yum, those are tasty!

The phrase is soooo overused that we have moved past being irritated. We are forever resigned to having those tasty things. We all frequently use the phrase improperly. Dress shopping? Those are Tasty. Time to fuel up the car? Those are Tasty. A cute dog in a passing pick-up truck? Those are Tasty.

So here's today's Those Are Tasty. Perfect for a snowy day.

Usually we make letter pretzels, but it's getting close to Valentine's Day. Nan did half of these, and I did the rest (this is pan #1... pan #2 wasn't quite so crowded!).

Here's the recipe, found ages ago from some website.

Those are Tasty Pretzels

A. Dough

1.5 cups warm water

1 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

2 Tbl brown sugar

1 1/4 tsp salt

4 cups white flour (if you have bread flour, use 1 cup, and 3 all purpose)

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water

2. Stir in sugar and salt. Add in flour and knead dough until smooth and elastic. (Don't put in all the flour--save out 1/2 cup or so, and add in as necessary to keep it from being too sticky.)

3. Let rise 30 minutes (or more)


B. Create a soda water bath for the dough

Combine:
2 cups warm water
2 Tbl baking soda

When dough has risen, cut in half (wrap one half to keep moist). Pinch or cut off a chunk of dough and roll into a long rope (1/2 inch or less) and shape.

Dip pretzels into soda solution and place on greased baking sheet.

Allow to rise again (not too long--usually they are ready by the time I've filled the cookie sheet).

Bake at 450 for 8-10 minutes or until golden.

Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with coarse salt.
(Alternately, you could dip the pretzel into melted butter on both sides and then dip into cinnamon sugar. We never do this.)

NOTE: These are best warm out of the oven. If they cool off, just zap them for 10 seconds or so. They need to be eaten quickly or they taste dead. The salt will melt away within 24 hours. So share with neighbors and friends right away. (We gave half of these to our next door neighbors that we don't like. Dang we're nice.)