Spaghetti and pretzels

Monday was a fun day of baking and experimenting. I used my bread maker to make some soft pretzels. The boys thought it was a whole lot of fun rolling them out for their after school snack. Unfortunately I took a plate of warm pretzels to my neighbor and the rest were devoured before the camera came out. Oops! Here's the recipe I used, if you want to try it sometime.

Soft Pretzel Dough:
(add the ingredients as recommended by your machine. Mine asks for liquid first, then dry ingredients, then yeast)

1 1/4 cup Water (80 degrees, I just use warm water and don't measure the temp)
1 egg yolk, room temperature
1 tbsp oil
2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp white pepper (I didn't have any so I left it out)
3 1/2 cups bread flour
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

Put it all together and run the dough setting for 1.5 lbs.

When the dough cycle is done, on a lightly floured surface, cut the dough into 16 pieces. Roll or stretch out and form into pretzel shapes. Brush pretzels with a mixture of 1 egg white adn 1 tbps of water, then sprinkle with Kosher salt.(I also sprinkled on some garlic powder cause everything tastes better with garlic.) Bake on a greased baking sheet (I used my pampered chef bar pans so I didn't grease them) at 375 for 15 to 20 minutes. I think next time I am going to grate some fresh parmesan cheese on top with the garlic.

Now for the spaghetti -

My sister got me the pasta maker attachment to my Kitchen Aid mixer for Christmas, and I finally got it out yesterday. I followed their basic egg noodle recipe, and had fun making it into thick spaghetti. I made turkey meatballs and used some HEB Spinach and cheese spaghetti sauce as a base for our sauce.

The pasta recipe:
3 large eggs
2 tbsp water (add the eggs to a measuring cup, add water to ensure you have 3/4 cup total liquid)
2 3/4 cups sifted all purpose flour
Combine ingredients with flat beater, then mix with the dough hook for 2 minutes at speed 2. Remove mixture and hand knead for 30 sec then wrap with plastic wrap and set aside for at least 15 minutes before putting into the pasta maker.

The meatballs:
2 lbs ground turkey
2 eggs
1 pkg saltine crackers crushed
1/2 onion diced small
I don't measure spices, but I put in
a bunch of worchestershire sauce
texas steak seasoning
garlic
cumin
black pepper

I mixed them together, rolled into balls, and baked at 400 for about 25 minutes. Then tossed them into the sauce. The sauce was one jar of HEB spinach and cheese sauce, with 2 cans of diced tomatoes, and some Mrs. Dash garlic and herb seasoning. Josh isn't a fan of tomato sauces, so I left some meatballs separate for him, and he asked to take the leftovers to school in his lunch the next day. The rest of us had leftovers for our lunch the next day as well, so these recipes fed our family of 5 for two meals. I'm calling that a success!

All cooked and drained

The turkey meatballs in sauce

Yum!

We are all big fans of freshly grated parmesan

They look happy with the result

Seth was so happy he was shoveling it in with his hands!