Pretzel Dogs (or "Mummy Dogs" for Halloween) from Food Mayhem.
The pretzel dogs (we actually used bratwursts because of my husband's hot dog aversion) were pretty good. The part of the pretzel closest to the dog was still a little bit doughy; maybe a little bit longer cooking time would have helped? So those were only okay. But I still had leftover dough after assembling them, and I used it to make a few regular pretzels. And those were amazing! Seriously one of my favorite things I've ever made. I highly recommend! The only thing I did different was I just popped the ingredients into my trusty bread machine, since I am sadly without a mixer. Hint hint, Santa!
Southwestern Pot Roast and Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes from For the Love of Cooking.
Really, really delicious! I love pot roast, and this was just a nice change with all of the southwest spices. The potatoes were heavenly too, although I followed her directions for roasting the garlic and it didn't seem like enough time. Several of the cloves stayed intact, making for huge garlic chunks in the potatoes. They were still really good, but I just needed my garlic to blend in more.
Baked Pumpkin Donuts from Cheeky Kitchen.
These had such promise. A donut that isn't deep-fried but still tastes good? I had to give it a try. Too bad that they were only okay. The dough was way too sticky to work with, so I kept having to add more and more flour. The flavor of the donuts themselves was pretty nice. But they were just extremely dry on the inside, and the glaze didn't dry like a regular donut glaze at all. It just made the outside extremely wet and sticky and wasn't all that tasty. Too bad. Maybe I would try again if I was going to fry them, and if I could find a better glaze recipe.
Homemade Noodles for Chicken Noodle Soup, also from For the Love of Cooking.
Make your own noodles. Please! Please make your own noodles! They are so, so good, and really not that hard. I actually tried a homemade pasta recipe from Pastor Ryan of PW fame, and it was extremely tedious. You had to knead the dough for-ev-er! I expect homemade noodles to be more work than just opening a package, but that took way too long for me to ever want to do it again. However, this recipe from For the Love of Cooking was great! The hardest part was rolling the dough out as thin as you possibly can (since the noodles get much thicker during cooking), but even that didn't take a lot of time. Just some elbow grease. And I actually thought cutting them up with my pizza wheel was a lot of fun! :) Also, you can make a ton of noodles at once, let them dry out completely, and freeze them for quicker use later. I tried this and they were still wonderful. So come on! You owe it to yourself to try homemade noodles at least once. F'realz. :)
