Le’ts face it…many of us are still under shelter-in-place orders, and it’s getting hard. What started as an annoyance in March is getting long seven weeks in. I’m so proud of my kids. They have been amazing humans as we’ve walked this road together. I think our summer in Germany followed by two more in Italy has helped tremendously in the respect that we’ve done life just us several times. The difference is that while we weren’t part of our usual communities those summers, we were still able to go out and see and experience new things.

One of the things we’ve tried to do intentionally is spend time cooking with the kids. Before I started writing this our almost 12-year-old came into the office to ask me if I could make my homemade spaghetti sauce with her so that she could learn to make it. I love that!

This seven weeks has given us the chance to put the older two in charge of meals as well as spend intentional time with the younger two giving them more time in the kitchen. Since our almost 12-year-old talks about culinary school as often as she talks about law school, it’s been time well spent. That’s what’s inspired today’s post. I thought some of you might enjy a simple cooking idea to try with your kids (or just for you) this weekend. We love Auntie Anne’s pretzels, but I don’t love the price. Hence, they’re still a treat for my kids. We’ve had the bread machine out a few times over the last weeks, so that got me thinking. Could I find a soft pretzel recipe that we could use in the bread machine. After a few minutes poking around I found one that I can guarantee we’ll make again. Here’s the recipe with the link:

I went with this one because I’ve like other Taste of Home recipes I’ve tried in the past. I also compared it to a few others to see how the ingredients compared. One of the things I loved about this recipe is it didn’t require a trip to the grocery store. Everything we needed was on hand and is probably on hand at your house, too.

Here’s what’s wonderful about a bread machine: you dump the ingredients in (usually liquids first) and then the machine does the mixing, kneading and waiting (AKA rising) for you. I’m TERRIBLE about waiting enough time for dough to rise, so the machine saves me time and frustration. Once the dought setting was done, it was simple.

We made the ropes of dough. Flipped them into pretzel shapes. Dunked them for 15ish seconds in the baking soda boiling water. Baked tem and then I deviated from the recipe. I always deviate from a recipe. This time it was to slide a stick of butter over the top before sprinkling salt on top of each. Eat them hot. So fabulous!

We will definitely make them again. It made eight pretzels.  Enjoy!