Busy busy

It just seems that ever since this year started I've been really really busy. There is just lots of stuff that I want to do, so I've been trying to do it a little bit at a time. I've got blankets I'm almost done with (that will be massive once I get it done)

I found a recipe for french bread that sounded like it was really easy, so I had to give it a try. I've made it twice, and the second time around was better. Yeah.

6 Cups flour (maybe more)
2 T yeast
3 T sugar
1 T salt
2 1/2 Cups warm water
1/3 cup oil
1 egg, beaten
sesame seeds

Put 3 cups flour, yeast, sugar and salt in bowl of food processor. In a liquid measuring cup, whisk together the water and the oil. While the food processor is running, slowly add the water/oil mixture alternately with 3 additional cups of flour (or more if needed). Process until a soft dough forms.
Leave dough in food processor for an hour and push the pulse button every 10 minutes.
Divide dough in half and form into two elongated loaves. Place on cookie sheet dusted with cornmeal. Let rise for thirty minutes then slash tops on diagonal, brush with beaten egg, and sprinkle with sesame seeds (if you plan to save a loaf for French toast, omit the sesame seeds). Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes.

Before baking

After baking

After making it, I would say to give it an extra 10 minutes before forming it into loaves. If you like a denser bread, follow the directions up above. I gave it another 10 minutes and it seemed to make it lighter and more like the store-bought french bread.

I had some pretzels laying around that I picked up on sale at the store, and my mom gave me some Valentine's Day sprinkles. And they were Snyder's Olde Tyme Sticks, so they were a little bit longer and thicker than the usual pretzel sticks. So, what better than to make chocolate covered pretzels.

Lots and lots of pretzels

Lots of sprinkles

Now, I've done pretzels before and somewhere on one of the many blogs I read it had a great idea. When making dipped pretzels, melt the chocolate in a coffee mug. I had to give it a try, and it worked so much better. Part of me wonders how well it would work for cake pops.

Oooooh...

Ahhhhhh

Dip

and drip

Variety of sprinkles and sugars

Before the drizzle...

And a drizzle fail.

I really wanted this to work. I'm not sure what failed so much, but holy cow. Maybe I squeezed too hard, I don't know. I need to work on it though. I used to be better. And I don't get the red candy melts, aren't they supposed to be red? It's looking a little more like a rose color than red. Not that rose isn't ok for what I was doing, but come on.

Valentine's Day sprinkles.

And I bagged them up and have handed some of them out.

♥♥♥

I like doing little things like that. It's fun, and whenever I get new sprinkles I have to do something.

Then, my mom suckered us into going over and cooking for SuperBowl Sunday. So, we did a spread. Pizza bites, veggie tray, bean dip, and some Cinnamon Crescent Rolls and Chocolate and Peanut Butter Crescent Rolls.

Mmmm...fooooood...

There was lots and lots of food, and we had fun watching the game and eating. I kind of wish we could of had it at our place, but the lack of cable will do that to you. We just have more seating it seems, and I actually have more counter space than my mom. Maybe someday we will get cable. Although, I don't know if I can handle all football, all day on Sunday's.