We hosted tonight’s WND and I decided that I just had to make pretzels. Adina had sent me the recipe and I was so ready to taste them again. They’re a bit more work than my old recipe, which just had you mix the ingredients together, roll out the dough into pencils, and bake. These involve proofing the yeast, kneading and letting the dough rise, rolling and twisting the pretzels together, then dunking them into a baking soda and water bath and sprinkling with salt. As long as you have the time to let the dough rise (and half a cup of baking soda to spare for the water mixture), these are definitely worth the effort. And really, the effort is minimal.

The recipe says to brush with butter/margarine, but I didn’t bother. The salt stuck to the dough nicely after its water and baking soda bath, and who needs the extra calories, right? We enjoyed them straight up and also had some fun dipping them in melted semi-sweet chocolate from the fondue pot which was in attendance tonight.

Amazingly, we had two pretzels left of the dozen the recipe made. And there were six of us at dinner, tonight. I guess that gives you an idea of how good they are. Ty and I are looking forward to enjoying pretzels with our lunch tomorrow. Yum!

Oh, did you want the recipe? Here you go! Buttery soft pretzels, by Christa Rose.

One quick note: The recipe says to cut into 12 pieces of dough, but 16 yields a similarly-sized pretzel. Just bake for 7 minutes instead of 8.

Last night I was poking around the web, mostly browsing my favorite vegan food blog, and I saw this recipe for Blueberry-Banana Bread. I had one of those, “Why didn’t I think of that?” moments. I showed the recipe to Ty, and he didn’t seem altogether very excited about it. But I knew I had to try it. So, I did!

Unfortunately, I have this bad habit of cooking things in the evening, and then I have to wait until the next day to have decent enough lighting to take decent enough shots. And of course, by then, the bread is half-eaten.

But what delicious bread it was. It could be better, though. I was one banana short, so I made up for it with some additional applesauce. Next time I try making it, the flavor is going to rock. Also, I plan on checking out white whole wheat flour. And maybe by the next time, I’ll have some fresh blueberries to work with, instead of the ones I froze last summer. We’ll see!

One thing that I absolutely love about baking vegan, and kind of have to giggle about, is the whole “licking the spoon” bit. When making cookies or breads, or anything that would have called for eggs, you don’t have to feel bad about licking the spoon! Because, hey, there’s no risk of getting sick! You could lick the whole damn mixing bowl, if you like! And that makes me laugh and feel slightly holier than thou. In a good way, of course.