soft pretzels.

well friends, i've been raving for long enough without sharing the love with you all. it's finally time to let you in on all my soft pretzel secrets so that you too can participate in the epic-ness that is super sexy soft pretzel wednesdays. the reason it has taken 5 weeks for me to share this with you is because it took me 5 tries to get the recipe perfect. but let me assure you, friends, that is in fact perfect. 
don't question me on this one.

ingredients

soft pretzels:

1 ½ cups warm water

2 ¼ tsp. yeast (1 package)

1 tsp. oil

1 tsp. honey

1 tsp. salt

2 Tbs. sugar

4 cups flour

½ cup baking soda

1 egg, beaten

coarse salt

cheese sauce:

velveeta cheese

black pepper

greek seasoning

photography by kelli

1. mix water, yeast, oil, honey, salt, and sugar in a large bowl. cool tip: pour the oil first, then use the same tsp. for the honey and the honey won't stick. by the time you'v added all the ingredients, the yeast should have gotten a little foamy.

2. add 4 cups of flour and mix with a large spoon until dough is thick. then use your hands to begin kneading the dough. i usually take the dough out of the bowl and knead for about 10 minutes, adding a little bit of flour as needed so that dough isn't too sticky. roll into a ball. about now is when you should get a big pot of water boiling on the stove.

3. cut the dough into 8 pieces using a serrated knife. i just cut it right through like a pizza--all the way down the middle, and then each piece in half two more times. math and geometry and stuff.

4. this is the fun part! (and the part that i'm worst at...) roll out each piece of dough into a long snake and twist it into a pretzel shape. lyss is the pro at this, so she usually makes mine for me. #realtalk: my pretzels are horrifically ugly. lyss says it's best to roll the dough inside-out, so that when you press the ends together, they stick and the pretzel keeps its shape. 

5. this is the hardest part. once you have your pretzels shaped, pour ½ cup baking soda into your boiling pot of water. using a large spatula (or two, if you're being extra careful) lower one pretzel at a time into the boiling water. let it sit for 30 seconds, and then carefully lift it out of the water onto a pan covered with parchment paper. be careful with this step!!! if you're not super careful in lowering and lifting the pretzels in and out of the water, they will fall apart and lose their beautiful pretzel shape.

6. after your pretzels are all boiled and laid out on cookie sheets, rub the top of each one with beaten egg. as you can see in the pictures, we usually use a folded napkin to do this, because we are domestic college students and stuff. except i just recently purchased a basting brush and it was an awesome gift to myself, so pretzel night just got a little classier, folks. after the pretzels are egg-washed, sprinkle them with coarse salt. i just use sea salt and i use it generously.

7. bake at 375° for 10 minutes, or until golden brown. basically these are going to come out looking like pure heaven, and you might not be able to handle it. it's okay. i've been there.

8. while the pretzels are baking, i make the cheese sauce. i slice up a chunk about 2 inches thick of velveeta cheese, add a few Tbs of milk, and heat on low in a sauce pan. once the sauce is all melted together, i add a dash of black pepper and greek seasoning. most people don't have greek seasoning, but i'm gonna tell you right now that its the secret ingredient in this cheese sauce. i'm 100% convinced that greek seasoning can fix almost every culinary disaster there is. 

9. eat up!



i'm so happy i finally get to share this with you guys! super sexy soft pretzel wednesday nights have been the highlight of my weeks for the past month, and we all know how much i love sharing what i love with everyone else. so make some pretzels this wednesday and tweet me with the pics so i can be a part of your super sexy soft pretzel wednesday too!

drag you around, but bring you back to where you were.

{moment of appreciation for the iphone 5's camera.}
{moment over.}

being home without many friends here these last couple of weeks has given me a lot of alone time to really just think, and i decided i want to write some of those thoughts out here, because it's my blog and i can.

 i've been reflecting a lot on everything i learned this summer at efy and even on some of the biggest happenings since this time last year. at this time last year i was headed into my second year at byu with my favorite people as roommates and absolutely no idea what was in store for me. i was confident in going back though. byu had become my stomping grounds and i couldn't wait to get back home to it.

and then so much happened last year that tested and tried me and hurt me and made me better. 

i learned so much about relationships and love. i learned about being a feminist. i learned to rely on the Lord not only in times of sin, but also in times of pain. i learned how to let people take care of me and see me in tears. i learned how to walk out of the storm and into a new day with a smile on my face and trust in God's plan.

on thursday i leave zona to go back to byu again and start my junior year of college. and i'm realizing just now that a good part of my current situation is exactly how it was last summer. new roommates who i already adore, a new apartment, new ward, new classes, new boys to be interested in. 

but i'm not going back the same person that i was last year. the experience is going to be different because i am different. i am different, but i am better. i am better because of the challenges and because of efy and because of my Savior. 

in cleaning out my room last night i found a poem that i wrote for an english assignment senior year of high school. i changed the middle two stanzas to match my life now and i'm gonna pull a bachelor-chris on you all and share that poem, which is something i've never done of this blog before, so go easy on me. 

we are hardy stock.

thought i'd given up on blogging for good, didn't you?

so did i.

first off, an explanation: my first semester of college sure looks fun from the viewpoint of my blog, but in reality, it was a pretty miserable experience for me. i struggled A LOT with my self-confidence, not making friends, and feeling like i had no one to talk to. i spent way too many nights crying alone in my room, because i just wanted to go home to arizona. kind of dark days, people.

but.

i went home over winter break, figured out who i was again, prayed a whole lot, and knew that i had to make my second semester at byu better than the first. even though i wanted nothing more than to transfer to asu and stay in az forever, i knew that God had sent me to byu for a reason, and i needed to find that reason. so i went back.

and oh my gosh, you guys.

the middle of march found me crying myself to sleep again, but this time it was because my heart was so full of joy and love. there was absolutely no room for sadness in my life. with complete reliance on the Lord, somehow i had turned my life around. i made friends that are going to last a lifetime. i did better in school. i made room in my life for the perpetual smile that i had been missing for so long. and when it came time to come home to my beloved zona for the summer......i didn't want to leave.

the quote above, written over the beautiful spring blossoms of utah that i still can't look at without smiling, came to me at the best time possible.

you guys, sometimes you have to burn to the ground. sometimes things have to really, really suck. sometimes you have to be at absolute rock bottom, with just a sliver of hope left, to be able to appreciate the all-consuming love that can and will follow.

to be continued....