Monthly Archives: December 2013

Homemade Soft Pretzels Today

Health, Kitchen,

DSC01129  Our first efforts at soft pretzels.

DSC01131 Two of the nicer ones.

Our unbromated flour, bread machine dough soft pretzels came out well enough for a first trial.  We shaped the dough made with the dough setting.  They rose nicely as they baked, so we can see that to get a real pretzel form, we have to leave a lot of space between the pretzel loops.

This only used 1 1/2 teaspoons of yeast, whereas a packet of yeast contains 2 1/4 teaspoons of yeast, so we could probably increase the amount of all other ingredients by 50%.  That would remain within the machine flour limit of 4 cups of flour.

The pretzels  were very tasty, served with garlic butter, and Parmesan cheese, and were slightly crunchy.

We generally eat at home for weight and health reasons, so these may be healthier than purchased ones.  Besides that, it was a meatless meal for us.

My better half says it is bread!  Give us this day our daily bread, in this case pretzels!

 

 

 

Garden, 12th Week After Planting

Garden, , , , ,

DSC01108 The biggest radish on DEC 5, 2013DSC01115   Garden overview DSC01116  Garlic, DEC 5, 2013

This biggest radish is a good size.  We may get more next week.  Some may begin growing better when the days begin to lengthen.  Only two and a half weeks until then.

The garden overview shows the radish patch to the left, and parsley and cilantro to the right.  The scattered grey-green plants are the cabbage plants that I bought already started.  I planted eight of these in different parts of the garden to see where they grow best.  (Since most of the garden did not do well.)

The garlic is from one head that we bought at the grocery store, and separated into cloves.  I planted about 6 cloves at each end of the garden.  It  is growing well everywhere so far.

Though I planted a whole onion at the same time, nothing is growing from it, at least not yet.  I am going to see if onions, from seed or planted whole, and chive from seed begin to grow better later.

It is a little surprising to me that garlic grows so much better than any of my onion types so far.  Two years ago I got good chives from plants, and onions did begin to take hold in the late winter.  I would have gotten a couple of scallions if that garden had not been full of lead.

 

Garden, 11th Week

Garden, ,

DSC01071 Overview of garden, NOV 29, 2013

DSC01072 Radishes are growing!DSC01086 Our plantain cluster on NOV 29, 2013.

DSC01087  Plantain trees on NOV 29, 2013.

Even though these plantains are beginning to turn brown, our one plantain cluster is still growing.  We are going to get a small radish yield.  We’ll see what happens with our winter weather.    Will it freeze?