One of my favorite “when-I’m-bored” things to do is to flip through cooking magazines. Each season brings a new set of flavors, and as we are now full on into fall and right on the edge of the holidays, magazines are filled with pumpkin-this and apple-that. I always find at least 10 recipes to try, and sometimes I actually get around to making one. It’s hard to pass them up when each picture is more delicious than the last. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but with some of these pictures, no words are needed, you could almost take a bite right out of the page.
As I was flipping the other day, one picture jumped out at me. It made me feel like I was relaxing in an outdoor café, possibly in Germany, with a cold beer and some spicy mustard. You’ve probably guessed what it was – a recipe for soft pretzels. The thought of a warm, steamy batch of salty-yummy pretzels was just too much to pass up.
I’ve always wanted to try my hand at making pretzels. I feel like a number of people have told me that they are complicated, and so that has always kept me from doing it. I read through the recipe, and while there were a few odd steps, and it wasn’t the shortest recipe ever, the picture already had me. There was no way I wasn’t making this recipe.
As I scanned the ingredient list, the only item that wasn’t in our cabinet was barley malt syrup, but molasses made a fine substitute. It was in the instructions that there were a few interesting steps. I knew that pretzels, like bagels, are boiled, but the strange part I learned is that they are boiled in alkaline water. So, I baked a third of a cup of baking soda for an hour, let that cool, and then added the cooked soda to the boiling water. Apparently, it helps the pretzels brown while giving them a shiny appearance and their characteristic chewy texture.
I think we did pretty well. My helpers had a great time shaping the dough, and while our pretzels aren’t going to be stars in a cooking magazine anytime soon, they were delicious. A perfect snack for a cool evening and definitely worth a thousand words (although there wasn’t a lot of talking while we enjoyed them).
This week we experienced some of the coolest weather since March. Cool, crisp air, cloudless skies, and sun-kissed afternoons are why you live in Florida. Even as we move into November, there is still time to get veggie gardens planted for winter and early spring harvests. Cool season favorites are arriving at the nursery each week, including Petunias, Dianthus, and Geraniums. The Pumpkin House is still up if you need a last-minute fall picture. In a few weeks, we’ll be transforming it into a winter wonderland for the holiday season. Gardening in Florida never stops. It just gets better and better.
