When life gives you lemons....

When life gives you lemons, you....make lemon blueberry soft pretzels. Yes, I know, it sounds a bit weird but they were divine. I've been getting my fitness on, and it hit me...you know what I REALLY miss here in Germany? A good soft pretzel like you'd get from Auntie Annie's in the mall. In the end, I've been good so why not right? Exactly. I did forget to add poppy seeds to the dough like I had intended but it turned out great either way. If you do decide to add poppy seeds, I'd say about 2 tbsp.

Maybe I'll be making Pepperoni or Pretzel Dogs in the near future! For now, lets get started.

For Pretzels:
adapted from smells like home.
used for basic pretzel base.

Makes about 12 large pretzels.

1 1/2 cups warm water
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
2 1/4 tsp instant dry yeast
4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cups unsalted butter, melted
1/4 - 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
1 lemon for lemon zest
(if more lemon flavor is desired add half more lemon zest from another lemon)

For later:

10 cups water
2/3 cups baking soda
2 tbsp melted butter

For vanilla icing/glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar
2 tbsp milk
1 tbsp melted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract

combine well and brush onto pretzel or dip.

instructions:

Preheat the oven to 425 F

In a large bowl - it can be a normal bowl or you can use your stand mixer if it has a dough hook. I just used a normal bowl and a large plastic cake spoon. Mix together yeast, salt, water, and sugar until dissolved then add the flour and butter. If you're using a stand mixer, switch to a dough hook at this point and put on medium speed until dough is smooth and pulls from side of bowl; if you're not, simply mix the dough until it forms large chucks and all ingredients are mixed together. Take clean hands and knead the dough until it has fully come together, after add your lemon zest and blueberries. Carefully fold into the dough and knead a few more times but not too much, you don't want to dry out the dough or over knead as it will not be as soft final product.

Once everything is done, place dough into lightly buttered bowl and place in a warm place covered in plastic wrap for about an hour or until doubled in size.

A pastry cutter would be ideal but if you don't have this, a butter knife will do as well. Turn dough out onto a lightly oiled surface and cut into 8 equal pieces (a little bigger is also fine). Roll each piece of dough into 24-inch rope or your desired length, depending on how big or small you desire them and form pretzel. Be gentle to not crush the blueberries, but if you do, do not fret. Place a damp paper towel over formed pretzel to prevent it from drying out as you form the others.

Now that everyone has been formed and covered start boiling the 10 cups of water and add the baking soda. One pretzel at a time, dip it in using a spatula for about 30 seconds then place one by one, on a cooking sheet covered with wax paper. (please be sure to spray wax paper because sticking IS an issue if you do not. Lets just say, some of mine didn't come out too pretty and had wax paper stuck to them...forever! Ha ha)

Brush on the butter, place them in the oven and bake them until they are a nice medium/darker brown or about 12-14 mins. Mine only took 10 minutes, just be sure to watch them closer to when they should be done. So cooking times vary!

Take them out of the oven, brush with remaining butter and, let them cool for about 5-10 minutes, brush some of the icing on them and serve with the rest of the vanilla icing!

If you'd like even more of a citrus burst: with left over lemon zest mix it together with some sugar and add it on top of the pretzel after brushing on vanilla icing!

Enjoy!!!

Apple Butter Braised Short Ribs

If you all haven't noticed my love for apples is a little extreme. It's my favorite fruit, I mean it only doubles that it is so versatile when being used to bake, cook or just eat in general. My favorite dishes are savory dishes that apples tend to compliment - pork chops baked with apples, sweet potato gnocchi with chicken, bacon, apples and a brown butter sauce. I could go on and on, but apples are forever my go to if I want to add a little sweet to my dish. 

I made apple butter and boy, was it good. I've been craving the goodness of southern cooking lately and it brought me back to home. Though, when you make apple butter in the slow cooker, you tend to end up with many, many batches of it. Not complaining but as I didn't make it thinking of canning, I had to use it within 2 weeks. Lets just say the other posts that are about to show up, all pretty much use apple butter. Apple butter got my creative kitchen juices flowing, so this is how this delicious, mouth-watering, fall off the bone dish made its way into my kitchen.  

These braised short ribs got two thumbs up from my husband as he stuffed his mouth and told me how good they were, oh - and that we must have them again. Braised short ribs are so easy to make your own sauce, and just go, but when you come back, you come back to the best, easy meal.

Ingredients:

makes 4-6 servings

Braised Ribs:

salt & pepper to taste

extra virgin olive oil

Apple butter (best to make ahead in advance in crockpot or use store bought):

adapted from brown eyed baker.

3-6lbs apples (a mixture of fuji, gala, and pink lady is what I used)

1 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

a pinch of cardamom & ginger

Additional needs:

apple cider or apple juice

2 cloves garlic, chopped

sweet onion

water

I highly recommend that if you don't have a cast iron, that you get one. If you don't have one, you can use a normal pan.

First, place crockpot on low heat. Then, get a large pan and cover the bottom with just enough olive oil. Now, take your braised ribs and season them with salt and pepper to your taste. once the oil is heated sear all sides about 1-2 minutes. You're not trying to cook these, just seal the juices in. Now that all sides are seared, place into crockpot.

Take a medium size bowl and combine apple butter, and just enough apple cider or juice and very little water. You don't want the mixture to be watery, but you don't want it as too thick either. I recommend using apple cider if you can find it, as it will give your ribs an even stronger flavor but if you don't have any, apple juice will do just fine. Add chopped garlic, and your desired amount of sweet onion to the apple butter mixture.

Top the braised short ribs with the mixture, making sure they all are nicely covered with the sauce and let cook for 6-8 hours. Some may fall off the bone, but that is perfectly okay. 

If you want, take the sauce after placing the braised ribs on a cutting board to cool, strain the sauce over a pot on medium high heat and boil for about 5-10 minutes or until sauce is thick and drizzle over your meat before serving. Sweet potato mash goes great with this meal. White or brown rice with veggies would as well. 

Tell me what you paired these delicious ribs with! 

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Gnocchi is a favorite in our house, and currently I'm in a love, hate relationship with the stuff. It's delicious, it's simple, and it's easy to mess up. There, I said it - it may be easy, but it is also so easy to mess up and there is no repairing this once it has turned out bad.

Sometimes it's the look, sometimes it's the taste, and sometimes, it's just a whole lot of, "I know for a fact, that I did this right. What went wrong?" This can either make you dance with joy or defeat you and you'll have to come back with gloves swinging to make sure you get it next time.

I've failed 3 times, and I've made successful dishes 5 times. These are totally worth it when they do come out correctly and when you can find the time to do them. I recommend spreading it out over a couple of days as it's not overwhelming and a lot to do all at one time.

Ingredients:
makes about 4 servings +

For gnocchi:

4 large sweet potatoes
olive oil
cinnamon
cardamom
brown sugar
flour
foil
salt

Preheat the oven to 400 F (200 C), while that is preheating take the sweet potatoes and scrub them lightly under warm water. Now, pat dry and take a fork, poke a few holes all around the sweet potato and rub a light layer of olive oil on them. Do not forget this step as it seals them. Though, you could even roast your sweet potatoes instead to also take as much moisture out as possible. Wrap in foil and let cook until soft - about 40-45 minutes.

Once out of the oven, set aside and let cool. You can stop here and resume the next day or continue.

Take cooled sweet potatoes and scoop out of the skin into a large bowl. Season however you wish. I used cinnamon, and cardamom with a touch of brown sugar. Take your foul and add about 2 tablespoons at a time, folding until you get almost like a sticky dough texture. You do not want to over flour so take your time and watch very closely. Take dough and place on floured surface, rolling into a long pieces. I'd advise flouring your hands and rolling them in more flour if they are still too sticky. Take a dough cutter (if you don't have one, just simply use a knife) and cut into about one inch thick pieces. You can take a fork and create creases on the gnocchi to help them better soak up any sauce you may use or you can use a gnocchi board. When using the board, lightly flour your thumb and press the gnocchi onto board, rolling back and forth.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, and drop the gnocchi in a few at a time. They will be finished once they float to the top of the water. Take out immediately and let dry, completely. Continue to do this until all of your gnocchi is cooked.

You can now use the gnocchi like this or you can pan sear them in a little brown butter and sage. My husband loves sweet potato gnocchi with chicken, bacon and apples in a brown sage butter sauce. It's delicious and can be dressed up or dressed down. I hope you won your battle against the delicious gnocchi!

Any love hate relationships with any foods you enjoy?

Apple Pie Braid

 I'm an apple lover, and when I say lover, I mean I'll choose to make anything apple over anything else.  I've been trying to get out of this habit, but apples are just so good, all year round and they compliment so many foods, even savory ones. I've had dough that I made sitting in the fridge and it's been calling my name; I resisted as I was craving hand pies but not the time to make them with my daughter becoming increasingly impatient with me while I'm in the kitchen. I guess she may be a tad jealous of my love for cooking, but if only she knew, my heart would always truly belong to her. 

I'm not a fan of shortening in pie crusts or dough. I don't think you get the flakey light crust, the heavenly taste or feel like you do when you use butter. I was also ecstatic to find another blogger who agreed with this and made a delicious dough that I could use. I have my own recipe my family has used forever but I think hers will now by my go to. Its just so good, and simple. This is not like a other braid recipes that uses actual bread dough with yeast. It's far better.

This post is suppose to be about this delicious dessert BUT, let me direct your attention elsewhere for a second. If you've never heard of Scoutmob, you've been missing out. I love the site with a burning passion, as strong as my passion is for baking, I'm also about supporting local businesses, buying local, and supporting small businesses Now, as I'm overseas it's much harder to do that but Scoubtmob makes it easier. My husband knew I needed a new cutting board and a rolling pin and he bought this custom made from Richwood Creations. When you buy from him, you're also giving to children in his area. If you're stationed overseas as well, or just overseas and want to buy you will have to use shipittoapo.com or an other site that will ship over. That's the only down fall but totally worth it in my eyes. Supporting a cause and a small business, what's better than that?

My husband wins so many husband award points for this score and the thought behind it. My rolling pin says 'made with passion & love' and the cutting board has our wedding date. To have someone understand the love I put in when I'm cooking and baking, makes me just want to cry. I'm definitely lucky in life and love. What a keeper, and I'm so thankful to have a love like this.

Anyway, enough with the sappy stuff, onto the recipe....

Ingredients:

For the dough I used: smitten kitchen (see for instructions)

2 1/2 cups flour

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

2 sticks unsalted, very cold butter

1 egg (used for egg wash later)

You will half the dough and wrap in plastic wrap and place within the refrigerator until ready to use, if not using within a week, freeze it for future use. 

For the apple pie filling:

3-4 large apples (I used pink lady apples)

one sliced lemon

3 tbsp brown sugar

cinnamon

ground cloves

cardamom

nutmeg

For the glaze:

1/3 cup powdered sugar

5 tsp heavy whipping cream

a pinch of salt and vanilla extract

I wanted a slight chai taste within my apple pie, you can use whatever spices you deem tasty for your apple pie. I also didn't measure them as I spiced to my own taste. 

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees, which is also a bit more than 200 C - on my german oven it says max after 200 C. Flour a surface and roll dough out. I have no method to my madness, I just rolled it until it was my desired thickness. Close to 16 x 8 but it just honestly need to be a nice even circle. Once rolled out, move to a lightly greased cookie sheet, (preferably with wax paper or foil to reduce sticking and burning) make 1 inch cuts on both sides of the dough so you can braid, leaving the middle untouched as the apples will go here.

After that is done, set a medium pan on medium high heat. While the pan is heating, peel and chop apples to the size of your choice. Mix ingredients together and squeeze a bit of lemon juice over the apples. Bring to a boil and mix together until tender - about 5 to 10 minutes. Let apples cool a bit before adding to your dough.

Add apples within the middle of dough and start folding one over the other. Left to right or right to left, however you prefer. It's very easy and you can't go wrong. Now that you're finished you will now mix the egg with a little water to apply the egg wash to the braid and place into the oven. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a nice golden brown.

Place onto a cooling rack with paper towel under to catch drippings from glaze. It's best if the glaze is brushed on while apple braid is cooling. The glaze will be a thicker texture, and that is how it should be. It will become thinner as brushed over hot braid.

Serve warm with ice-cream or your favorite glass of wine.