Pretzel Rolls

Its been awhile... Life got busy. Hopefully I'm back a little bit regularly now. I am, however, back with a goodie. This one is a keeper. They are best day of, obviously, but they made great sandwich bread all week long.

They are so good even my super picky "I only eat real pretzels from Germany" husband asked me to make them again.

A word of advice, if you can find either non-diastatic malt powder (replaces the sugar) or malted barley flour use them, as I think they will help yield even closer results to the store bought version. I couldn't find either.... without ordering online and I refused to wait that long.

Me want pretzel rolls.

Pretzel Rolls

Yields 12 sandwich sized rolls

Ingredients:

4 cups flour

1 cup warm water

1/2 cup hot water

1 package active dry yeast

1 tablespoons sugar, divided

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

8 cups water

2 tablespoons baking soda

1 egg white

salt for sprinkling

Directions:

Stir in 1/2 tablespoon of sugar into 1 cup of warm water and sprinkle package of yeast evenly over top. Stir around lightly and set aside for about 5 minutes to allow yeast to bloom.

In the meantime, stir together flour, other 1/2 tablespoon sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in bloomed yeast and hot water. Stir everything together until a sticky dough forms. Turn dough onto generously floured countertop.

Knead until a smooth, but still semi-sticky dough forms. Place into a clean bowl and cover with a damp towel. Set aside for about 45 minutes to an hour or until double in size.

Line a cookie sheet with a Silpat or parchment paper and set aside. Turn dough back onto lightly floured surface and cut dough into 4 equal pieces. Cut each of those 4 pieces into thirds making 12 equal pieces.

Roll each piece into a smooth ball and place on lined baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Place a towel over sheet and set aside for 20 more minutes.

While those are resting, froth egg white and preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat the 8 cups of water in a large non-reactive pan to a boil. Once it starts to boil stir in two tablespoons of baking soda. Place rolls 1 at a time (or no more than 3) and cook for about 1 minute on each side. Using a slotted spatula take rolls out of water and put back in their places on the baking sheet.

Once all rolls are back on baking sheet brush the tops with egg white and sprinkle with salt. Use a sharp knife to cut a shallow "+" sign into top of each roll.

Place the pan in the oven and bake for 25-40 minutes depending on how deep brown you want the rolls to be. Set on a cooling rack and allow to cool. Store in a airtight container for up to a week or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Enjoy :)

Step-by-step in pics:

Mix everything together

Knead into a ball

Allow to double in size

Roll into mini balls and allow to rest for a bit

Boil in a baking soda/water bath

Place back on pan

Bake them up to preferred darkness

Restaurant Review: Christo's (Minnetonka)

What should you do if a friend is coming over and you burn dinner? Use it as an excuse to try out a new restaurant of course! Which is exactly what I did one evening last fall when Daren was coming over to hang and the chili I had in the slow cooker decided to stick to the bottom and ruin itself.

I usually don't suggest Greek places because Mark isn't a fan of the Tzatziki sauce (...I know!), but I was longing for some gyro meat so to Christo's we went. This excited both Daren and I tremendously as we are both huge fans of Greek food.

Since I was so hungry and already knew what I was going to order, I asked for the spinach & artichoke dip with flatbread appetizer to give the gentlemen time to browse the menu. In all honesty, the only thing I remember about this item is the bread. Not that its a bad thing! The flatbread was made on their wood fire grill and was soft yet crispy. I'm sure the dip itself was tasty, but THAT bread.... all day. The closest comparison I can think to compare the flatbread with is perfect thin crust bread sticks.

Restaurant Review: The Wedge Deli

I'm a sucker for co-ops. From the strange items you come across to the interesting people who to always seem peruse the aisles, I think they are infinitely interesting. Living in a Minneapolis means that there are quite a few co-ops nearby, one of which is The Wedge. Mark and I always drive by it on our way home from the farmer's market and I always want to stop (I know, I know. Right after I get done at the farmer's market?!). Luckily one Saturday we were too hungry to wait the 20 minutes to get home for lunch and stopped in to The Wedge for a quick look-see before visiting their deli for some grub.

Since The Wedge is located off of Lyndale Avenue, and we were visiting on a Saturday afternoon, the store was beyond crowded. This didn't sit too well with Mark as we had just fought off the crowds at the farmer's market, so we booked it back to the deli. The deli was extremely accommodating of the vegetarian and vegan lifestyles. After studying the lunch offerings for a millisecond Mark and I decided to order the works burrito with chips and a make-your-own sandwich, respectively.

While we were waiting for our orders to be ready I noticed that they had a juice bar on the far right side of the deli. I don't know if I have mentioned my obsession with juice bars before, but if there is one in the vicinity I have to go and get a juice. It probably goes hand in hand with my vegetable obsession. Anywho, after asking for some behind-the-counter advice I went with something called a calcium cocktail. It was a vegetable juice made with kale, cabbage, beets, and carrots. Thanks to the beets and carrots the drink had a slight sweetness to it, which took away from the heavy flavor of the kale. I enjoyed my juice and Mark thought it was ok, but next time I would probably go with a tomato based drink.

Restaurant Review: CRAVE (West End Location)

Earlier this summer I had a rare just-the-girls dinner with some old college friends. We all live in relatively the same area so we met up at the West End in St. Louis Park for dinner at CRAVE. I was looking forward to eating at CRAVE because I had never been and wanted to try it out.

We arrived around 6 pm and luckily we had a reservation because the place was busy. After we were seated our waiter came, took our drink and appetizer orders, and left us to scan the menu.....

We didn't see our waiter for another 15-20 minutes when he came to drop off our drinks and appetizers. By this time we were all starving and promptly placed our orders hoping the previous 20 minutes were just a fluke. I mean, they were busy but not THAT busy.

Unfortunately, we were wrong.

By the time our food actually came it was almost 8 pm. One of the girls I was with still had some planning to do for her job the next day so we each took a couple bites and asked for to-go boxes. When the checks arrived we all already had out our cards, hoping the waiter would pick up on our vibes.

Funny thing happened, knowing that he would get new customers the faster he got us out the door he had our cards back to us in record time!

Now that I got the negative part of my review out of the way on to the good....

The food was delicious!

Be'wiched Deli

Dessert

Restaurants with the word "deli" in the title always get my attention. To me a deli is a place sure to have sandwiches, one of my favorite meals because they are endlessly customizable, quick, and, cheap leaving everyone satisfied. Obviously when I first heard of Be'Wiched Deli in the Warehouse District I thought it would be a great restaurant for Mark and me, no research necessary. Upon further inquiry (aka googling) I inserted it on the top of my "must-try" restaurants.

One day earlier this summer I happened to have a doctors appointment right around lunch time, so Mark blocked off a chunk of the afternoon and we hopped on the bus down to the restaurant. When we arrived it wasn't too busy, but filling up quickly. The place was set up a lot like a diner, complete with a display case full of baked goods, booth seating, and a chalk board at the counter menu.

After mulling over the menu for a few minutes (they have some unique and tasty sounding sandwiches) Mark settled on the smoked turkey on ciabatta and I went with the cup of soup and 1/2 sandwich combination of tomato gazpacho & veggie burger.

Restaurant Review Restaurant Week Summer 2012 Edition: FireLake Grill

Every time that restaurant week comes around, Tara and I spend hours researching and debating which restaurants we want to visit. This summer, we had narrowed our lunch restaurant down to a few finalists, and the winner was Fire Lake Grill. While Fire Lake isn't one of the celebrated restaurants in the Twin Cities, it had some great choices on the restaurant week menu.

We visited Fire Lake on a weekday. I got off of work, and we walked over to the Radisson hotel. The host showed us to our table where we were seated in generously-cushioned chairs. When our waitress came, we had to specially request restaurant week menus, but she was happy to provide them.

Restaurant week menu