Today is National Pretzel Day (this should really fall on the same day as Beer day!) and these are a massive labor of love. Despite being German — and Southern German at that! — I am not a very good pretzel maker. My Opa, the Bäckermeister. wouldn’t be too terribly impressed with my shaping abilities. The dough is great — high protein flour from Kin Arthur is great — and these are sourdough, though if you search my site, you will also find the yeast version. The first batch, the “arms” kept on coming off the sides, so I started tucking them under and that worked better. The pretzel salt (also from KA) kept on falling off the bottom bit when I made the slits, so I put it on the side. Not traditional, but they’ll do.
Dinner
This is perhaps the epitome of comfort food for me : Kasespätzle! I guess you could consider it Southern German “Mac & Cheese”, except with homemade pasta, Swiss cheese instead of cheddar and onions. It’s the first and last thing that I eat when I go home to Germany, and while I don’t make it all that often at home (mainly because the carbs and cheese add up to lots of calories!), it is the thing that I crave when I need a foodie “hug”. It’s delicious, it’s comforting and it instantly puts a smile on my face.
Hasselback potatoes are definitely comfort food to me! Long time followers of this page will know that I am very proud of this style of potato: back in 2015, I even won a contest with this recipe put on by the Idaho Potato Commission and if it’s one thing that Idaho knows, it’s potatoes. 🙂 These take a bit of time (usually right around an hour, although if you have larger potatoes, they can take a little longer), and they take a little bit of precision to make, but I think that they are worth it. My trick for not cutting all the way through the potato is to put a chop stick on either side o the potato so I don’t slice all the way down to the cutting board. If you aren’t a fan of garlic, you can omit it, though I do think the fresh herbs are nice in the basting butter.