It’s finally time to share my pretzel recipe!! Yippee!!!!! I have been wanting to write this one up for a while but had to tweek it a bit first. I didn’t actually change the recipe much – just altered it for soaking freshly ground flour. I have made these three times in the last two months, this time with the express purpose of making some healthier pretzel dogs (like what Auntie Anne’s serves at the mall) and experimenting more with the bagel variation. Even though it is Thursday now, I’m just up to DAY TWO OF THE SUGAR DETOX as far as summarizing my “no-sugar-added” plans for greatness. (Haha – we’ll see how well I really have done at the end of next Sunday….what? Did you say Easter candy was on sale at Walgreens today??) Let’s see…did I run on Tuesday? What did I do? Only two days ago, and it’s so foggy…Just checked the Nike log and found out that I did not, in actuality, work out on Tuesday. I did, however, play the bagpipes for about an hour, which is quite the achievement. With all the nursing, cooking, baking, and other things going on (still unpacking, too!) it’s really tough to find not only the time, but the energy, the stamina, and the impetus to actually run AND play the bagpipes both in one day, since they are each such “physical” occupations. I do remember that I cleaned out our bathroom (unpacked 2 1/2 boxes, filled up an entire moving box with trash), my closet (all the girls’ dressup outfits, shoes, scarves, crowns, and gloves are staged there, as well as my clothes and shoes), and our bedroom (didn’t “finish” the room but did put away four baskets of laundry,) so that should count for something.

Thankfully, now that it’s warming up I’ve found every glove and hat in the house (note the sarcasm), and it fell upon Claire the next day to organize them into a plastic over-the-door shoes holder.
Here’s the food that fueled my cleaning spree that day:
protein shake: frozen banana, protein powder, decaf coffee, cocoa powder, vanilla stevia drops, coconut milk, unsweetened almond milk, ice
lunch: Shepherd’s pie – because although I had lamented that the casserole dish was empty the other day, my husband had hidden the leftovers in the fridge for me. 🙂
unsweetened cinnamon iced tea
Snacks: ricecake with almond butter and banana, chocolate lace cookies – more like chocolate balls
Dinner: 2 quesadillas (corn tortilla with melted cheddar), 3 carrots
Snack: a pear, sliced, sprinkled with cinnamon with smoked gouda on top, broiled for a few minutes
Late night: (I was up late getting the two recipes of pretzel dough soaking, the one batch for bread, and the scone dough. It took a while because I was researching scone recipes for about an hour…) more chocolate balls, one yellow bell pepper dipped into hummus bit by bit
Now on to the pretzel recipe, with my pictures and variations – of course, if you’d like “simple,” and you don’t grind your wheat berries into flour, just go straight to the link for the original recipe and follow her methods. They are specific to making a yeast dough, meaning they are completely different from my soaking methods. Thankfully, if you’re soaking your flour normally, this recipe is just as easy as making any other yeast bread with soaked flour.
Here are a few to start with – the flour soaking overnight with buttermilk, butter, and water; the yeast proofing; the very sticky dough once its been kneaded and before transferring it to a bowl to rise; and the dough after its rise.
1 stick butter, melted
1/2 cup honey
2 t. honey








yum X 5 – this time I used an egg-wash (1 egg beaten with a few Tbsp milk) on the outside right before baking.
Corey, what type of wheat do you use, white wheat, hard red???
G
Pretzels and naan – hard white.