For my birthday the last couple of years we have been going on a road trip to Regina (it’s not terribly exciting but it’s about as far as can be enjoyed while lugging around a potty-training toddler!).
One thing that we do differently now than before Laura came around is that we pack our own food for trips. Living a reduced sodium, heart healthy life is not really possible while eating every meal out for an entire weekend. Don’t get me wrong – we went out while we were there but we like to live by the old mantra “everything in moderation.” I don’t think I can justifiably categorize an entire weekend of fast food/restaurant food as moderation!
Just because we packed our own food doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a special treat! This year, I decided to make pizza pretzels! I used to love these things and I thought it would be an easy treat to recreate to fit our reduced sodium diet!
These are not terribly difficult and are essentially the exact same as making bagels – just rolled into a different shape 🙂
Pizza Pretzels
Reduced Sodium, no preservatives and delicious!
Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups All purpose white flour (I use unbleached)
1 3/4 cups 100% Whole wheat flour (again, I use unbleached)
1/2Tbs Granulated Sugar
1 Tbs Yeast
1 Tsp Pink Himalayan Sea Salt (the kind I purchased contains only 480mg
of sodium per 1 tsp! Compare this to the Balaine sea salt which contains
380 mg of sodium per 1/4 tsp)
1 1/2 C Warm water – honestly I think I added a little extra 🙂
1/2 C Shredded Mozzarella (I used Kirkland brand)
1/2 C Pizza Sauce (I used my
Instructions:
- Mix the dry ingredients well.
- Mix in the wet ingredients.
- Knead by hand for 10 minutes or in your mixer for 5-8 minutes. Your dough should be elastic but a bit sticky still.
- Set dough aside in a well oiled, covered bowl for 45 minutes to rise (or until doubled in size). I toss mine in my warming drawer – if you don’t have one, find a warm place for it to sit.
- Punch down the dough and then cut into 8 or 16 pieces – I like the smaller ones personally, but you can do 8 large pretzels if you prefer.
- Roll each section into a large snake and then twist into a pretzel shape. Press the ends in to help them stick.
NOTE: Be sure all your dough is covered while not being worked with – this might take a while your first time – don’t let your dough dry out 🙂 I just cover the dough balls with a towel while I’m working and then cover the completed pretzels as well.
7. Allow pretzels to rise for 20 minutes
8. Get a large pot boiling and preheat oven to 425 F
9. Boil pretzels for 1.5 minutes per side – they should puff up a lot!
10. Once pretzels have been boiled, brush them either a beaten egg or milk and bake
for 10 minutes (15 minutes for large pretzels)
11. Take pretzels out, brush with sauce and cover in mozzarella – then back in the
oven for 10-20 minutes (until nice and brown but not burnt)
These are delicious warm but if you miss it, don’t worry – just nuke ’em or toss them in the oven for a couple minutes before eating 🙂
Our Transplanted Life 