Rolo-Pretzel-Pecan

For these tasty treats, all you have to do is lay the pretzels on a baking sheet (I used these cute square ones, but the mini twists would work too).  Top each pretzel with an unwrapped Rolo candy.

 

Bake in the oven at 250*F for 4-5 minutes (no longer).
When you remove them from the oven, the Rolo will still be in the same shape as when it went in the oven. Place a pecan half on top of the Rolo and press down a bit.
Top each of the Rolo with one pecan half.
Place the entire baking sheet in the freezer for about 5-7 minutes to allow the Rolo to cool.
Remove from freezer and enjoy! Or place in a container to enjoy later.  These will last several days- probably more, but they’ve never lasted that long in our house!
These are so delicious!  A great sweet-salty combo.
Enjoy!

Pretzels

Pretzels

Topping

Directions

1) Mix and knead the dough ingredients — by hand, mixer, or bread machine — to make a cohesive, fairly smooth dough. It should be slightly sticky; if it seems dry, knead in an additional tablespoon or two of water.
2) Cover the dough and let it rest for 45 minutes. It will rise minimally. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F.
3) Turn the dough out onto a lightly greased work surface, fold it over a few times to gently deflate it, then divide it into 12 pieces, each weighing about 2 ¼ to 2 ½ ounces.
4) Roll each piece of dough into an 18″ rope. Shape each rope into a pretzel.
5) Dissolve the malt in the water. Brush the pretzels with the solution, and sprinkle lightly with coarse pretzel salt.
6) Bake the pretzels for 25 to 30 minutes, until they’re a light golden brown. Note: This is correct; there’s no need to let the shaped pretzels rise before baking.
7) Remove the pretzels from the oven, and brush with melted butter, if desired.
Yield: 12 pretzels.

Recipe summary

Hands-on time:
20 mins. to 50 mins.
Baking time:
25 mins. to 30 mins.
Total time:
2 hrs 35 mins. to 3 hrs 15 mins.
Yield:
12 pretzels
I’ve taken off 30 pudgy pounds since February, but the Food + Drink tab at Pinterest, where I seem to be spending all my free time these days, could prove to be my undoing. There are so many “must try” recipes.

Take for example, these mall style, pretzel bites, pinned from Dine & Dish via AllRecipes.com.

I had to try them.

Mall Type Pretzel Bites

Ingredients

  • 1 ⅛ cups Water (70 to 80 degrees F)
  • 3 cups All-Purpose Flour
  • 3 tbsp Brown Sugar
  • 1 ½ tsp Active Dry Yeast
  • 8 cups Water
  • ½ cup Baking Soda
  • ¼ cup melted Butter
  • Kosher Salt for savory pretzels, or Cinnamon and Sugar for sweet bites.

Directions

Add the first four ingredients in order, into the bread machine, and mix on the dough setting.

Many similar recipes use salt in the dough, I double checked at AllRecipes.com, and this one did not use any, so I left it out. It didn’t seem to hurt anything. I also noticed some reviewers suggested using corn syrup in place of brown sugar. I might try that next time, and oh yes – there will be a next time, but for a first try, I stuck to the original recipe.

Remove the dough from the breadmaker, and divide it into eight balls, to be rolled, and shaped into the traditional, large pretzel shapes.

Or, take the easy way out, and pull it apart into 1 inch (or smaller) balls, for pretzel bites.

Bring two quarts of water, mixed with the ½ cup of baking soda, to a boil. Drop the dough bites, a few at a time, into the boiling water for 10-15 s
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Click the link below to continue onto the full article

http://almostunschoolers.blogspot.com/2011/07/diet-busting-mall-style-bread-machine.html

Baked Taquitos

Baked Creamy Chicken Taquitos
Recipe by OurBestBites.com

⅓ cup (3 oz) cream cheese
¼ cup green salsa
1 Tablespoon fresh lime juice
½ teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon onion powder
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
3 Tablespoons chopped cilantro
2 Tablespoons sliced green onions
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
1 cup grated pepperjack cheese
about 12 small corn or flour tortillas (we liked flour better)
kosher salt
cooking spray

Preheat the oven to 425°. Line a baking sheet with foil and lightly coat with cooking spray.

Heat cream cheese in the microwave for about 20-30 seconds so it’s soft and easy to stir. Add green salsa, lime juice, cumin, chili powder, onion powder and garlic powder and mix well. Add cilantro, green onions, chicken and pepperjack cheese and combine well.

You can prepare up to this step ahead of time. Just keep the mixture in the fridge.

The corn tortillas are harder to roll without cracking. For the corn tortillas: work with a few tortillas at a time and heat in the microwave until they are soft enough to roll without cracking. It helps to place them between damp paper towels. Usually 20-30 seconds will do it. If you find yours are cracking when you roll them or come unrolled right away, just try heating them longer and try the paper towel thing.

Place 3 Tablespoons of chicken mixture on the lower third of a tortilla, keeping it about ½ inch from the edges.

Then roll it up as tight as you can.
Place seam side down on the baking sheet. Lay all of the taquitos on the baking sheet and make sure they are not touching each other. Spray the tops lightly with cooking spray or an oil mister and sprinkle some kosher salt on top.
Place pan in oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until crisp and the ends start to get golden brown. Makes around 12 taquitos.
Dip in salsa, sour cream, guacamole, or Tomatillo Dressing. They would be great with black beans and this Cilantro Lime Rice.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Okay, this is not a food blog, and it’s not going to be a food blog. But, we have company this week, so our house is all about the food.

Back when I was still somewhat house bound, after baby number three, or four, I had a very sweet girlfriend, who used to stop at a coffee shack on her way over, arriving with mochas, and cream cheese coffee cake, in hand. I’m sure it didn’t do much to help me shed those post-baby pounds, but it was a welcome diversion.

She, and her family, arrived last night, to retrieve their daughter, who has been our guest for the week, and to spend the 4th with us. I figured a special dessert was called for, on their first night here, and the a recipe for Cream Cheese Pound Cake, taken from the November 2001, Southern Living, over at Elizabeth’s Edible Experience, seemed to fit the bill.

Southern Living’s Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Ingredients

  • 1 ½ cups Butter, softened at room temp
  • 1 (8-ounce) package Cream Cheese, softened at room temp
  • 3 cups Sugar
  • 6 large Eggs
  • 3 cups All-Purpose Flour
  • ⅛ tsp Salt
  • 1 tbsp Vanilla Extract

If you want a really pretty cake, there’s a complicated dance of science, and culinary art, involving creaming the butter and cream cheese, until smooth, but not over beaten, gradually adding the sugar, and the eggs one at a time, then the sifted together salt and flour, beating the mixture slowly, until everything is just mixed, and then gently stirring in the vanilla, before pouring the batter into the a greased, and floured 10-inch bunt pan, and baking it at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour and forty minutes, or until a toothpick, inserted near the center, comes out clean.

Or, if you care more about the taste, than the look, you can do what I did, and plop all the ingredients into a large bowl, and beat them like mad, until everything, except for the last chunky lumps of butter, is smooth, and batter like. Then, blob the whole thing into an angel food cake pan (because it’s the first pan, you manage to extract from the cupboard), sprayed with Pam baking spray (it has the flour already in it), and bake it for about 2 hours, at 300 degrees Fahrenheit, poking it a few dozen times over the course of the last 20 minutes, to see if it’s done.

Then, serve it upside down, to hide the lumpy, and hole filled top. But, don’t remove the crunchy, candy-like, layer from the side of the cake. It’s not pretty, but it’s the best part.

It’s not quite the coffee shack, coffee cake I remember, but it’s good enough to be dangerous. I mean really dangerous. I’ve never been sure whether the “pound” in pound cake refers to the weight of the ingredients, the heaviness of the cake, or the amount you will gain with each bite.

Happily, the children liked the cake as much as I did.

So, I’m safe for today. But then, July is National Ice Cream month…

It’s great to be a homeschooler.

Barbecue Turkey Sub

I made this for my husband for lunch the other day.

And then he asked for it again for dinner that night.

And the next night.

So here is the how to:

1- Get some good hoagie rolls and toast them under your broiler

2- Spread some mayo and some BBQ sauce on your toasted bread

Then here is what you need for the rest of the sandwich

– Deli turkey chopped up and mixed with BBQ sauce

– Coleslaw (I just bought a bag of shredded cabbage and mixed it with a store bough coleslaw dressing)

– Sliced red onion

– Sliced tomato

– Sliced avocado

– Swiss cheese

So after you spread the mayo and BBQ sauce on the toasted bread…

3- Put on the Swiss Cheese and the BBQ turkey and put it back under the broiler till hot and bubbly

4- Then layer on the rest of ingredients, season with salt and pepper…

5- Then devour while still hot. Yum!

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Click the link below to continue onto the full article

http://www.theredheadedhostess.com/home-and-garden/recipes/bbq-turkey-sub-deliciousness/