Just Stuff It!! Pretzel Sammies

It is Saturday Sunday today! Hooray! I was supposed to vacuum but I haven't done that yet.  What I did do was make some pretzel bites and pretzel sammies.  Spring training is upon us and that has me thinking of pretzels!! I used a good old stand by recipe that I have posted before because it was tasty and lets face it, sometimes it is just relaxing working with a recipe you  know works and works well.  I made the pretzel bite using this recipe here.  It can also be found at this link. For the sammies, I did switch out 2 cups of all purpose flour for whole wheat this time without affecting the texture or the taste.  These sammies were an absolute hit!!

Ham and Havarti pretzel sammies

Pretzel Sammies

Printable recipe

For the pretzel dough:

·         2 cups warm water

·         2 tbsp light brown sugar

·         1 pkg active dry yeast (2 ¼ tsp)

·         ½ cup butter, melted

·         3 cups all purpose flour

·         2 cups whole wheat flour

·         3 tsp salt

Hot water bath

·         6 cups water

·         ¼ cup baking soda

Egg wash

·         1 egg

·         1 tsp water

For the fillings, go with your favourite combinations of meats and cheeses.  Today I went with ham and Havarti, salami and provolone, as well as pastrami and cheddar.

Combine the warm water, yeast, and brown sugar.  Set aside for about 5 minutes and let it get all foamy.

Add the melted butter, the flour, and the salt.

With the dough hook, mix everything.  The dough will come together.  If the dough is sticky, add a bit more flour.

Knead the dough for about 5 minutes.

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel and set it in a warm spot to rise until double in size, about an hour.

While the dough is rising, cut the cheese into cubes and the meat into more usable portions.

Divide the dough into equal 15 portions. I used a scale and was able to get 15 portions of dough that were roughly 3 oz each.

Form each piece of dough into a ball and cover them with a clean tea towel while you work with a few pieces at a time.

Flatten each dough piece into a flat circle and start piling on the toppings alternating cubes of cheese and pieces of meat.  Pile the fillings on until you think it won’t close.

Pull the dough up around the filling and start pinching to seal all the sandwichy goodness up inside.

Put a large pot of water on the stove to boil.  Once it is boiling, reduce the heat slightly to a high simmer and slowly add ¼ cup of baking soda...it will bubble up so add it slowly!

Simmer the sammies in the hot baking soda water bath for about 1 minute flipping over after 30seconds.  Transfer to a baking sheet, brush with an egg wash.

If you like, sprinkle with coarse salt after the egg wash.  Although if you aren’t eating these right away, then skip the salt as it will just melt away in storage.  If you are making more than 1 kind, use a piece of the meat to lay on top of the sammies to help identify them.

Bake at 425F for about 15 minutes until golden brown.

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!

Back to Work Cheesey Stuffed Burgers: The Last Meal

 Please don't make me go back...the summer flew by so quickly....I am no where near done with my summer.  SIGH...

 Now that we have the new BBQ we have used it twice in as many days! After all, we must squeeze in as much summer as possible!  The evenings have a chill settling in over them and mornings are quite cool.  This is a sure sign autumn is creeping in.  SIGH. Now don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the bounty of the garden with fresh tomatoes, corn, carrots, and beets almost at the ready but the fact that dusk is settling in around 8:30 pm means we are getting closer to cooler weather.  I do look forward to the beautiful fall colours and the change....I just wish winter didn't last so darn long.

Some of our garden bounty

 I dubbed tonight's dinner "Last meal" as it is my last dinner of summer vacation.  I really can't complain, I do get 2 months off....but going back is just so darn hard.  Tomorrow morning I actually have to get out of bed when that alarm goes off instead of giving Hubby the boot....ACK!!  I will definitely need my morning tea, my mid morning tea, my lunch hour tea, and my mid afternoon tea.....or perhaps a caffeine patch of some sort.

While assembling the meat and fixings to make burgers this afternoon, I decided that I wanted to make these burgers a little more special so I tucked cheese in the middle of each burger.  But you know what? That wasn't special enough for me so I made some pretzel rolls.  Guess what? It still needed something else so I cooked up the rest of that bacon left over from making that sinful pie.

The Boy manned the BBQ again tonight...he does such a fabulous job cooking up burgers!

The boy certainly chose the most comfy chair possible for his BBQ session!

Cheese stuffed burgers. This made 9 burgers tonight.

3 lbs ground beef
2 small onions
1 egg
2/3 cup bread crumbs
salt
pepper
9 slices cheese (I used processed cheese slices today but any think square of flavourful cheese will do)

Grate the onion, mix in a healthy pinch of salt and a healthy pinch of pepper.

Add the ground beef and bread crumbs.
Gently mix by hand.
Divide beef mixture into equal portions. For these burgers, I used a 1/3 cup measure. (Next time I will use a 1/4 cup measure for each half, just so the burgers aren't so big...they were soooooo filling!)

Each measure will be joined with another to make sandwich cheese in the middle.
Flatten out half of your meat lumps and pair them with another portion of meat.
Fold a slice of process cheese into quarters.

Place a quarter in the middle of each patty.

Take the partner meat lump, flatten it out and place on top of the other.  Make sure to gently pat and form the patty to seal the edges.
Let the patties rest in the fridge

We had a couple of cheese blowouts!!!

How could you not enjoy these??

Have a great week everyone.  Wish me luck on surviving my first week back!

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!