Happy New Year!

Hmmmm, where o where to start? First, happy new year! make any resolutions? If you are on this blog, I'm guessing you didn't give up ice cream, hehehehe. If you did pick a diet as your resolution as so many do, remember, there are plenty of respectable low cal ice creams (and sherbets) out there. Hmmm, maybe I need to start tagging the the low fat stuff (shame I can't sort posts by calories). My resolution is to be a better blogger, but more on that later.

Ya know, I think I'm growing tired of shake week. As much as I enjoy a good shake, every day is starting to be a bit much. I love sitting down to some quality tv programming while I enjoy a bowl of the cold stuff. Having a shake just isn't the same.

Today's plan was to make milkshakes and pretzels. The shake we made was Twix based. It made a decent chocolate shake, but the Twix flavor was pretty much none existent (not that I was surprised). Technically I could have thrown some caramel in, but then the cookie flavor would have still been missing.

Awhile back, I saw pretzels on foodgawker and knew that at some point, I would have to try them. I think it's pretty obvious that I love food, and not just the frozen kind. I would love to be able to make the fancy meals that other people do, but it's just not going to happen. Sure, I try, and occasionally I manage to churn out a decent dessert from someone else's recipe, but overall, I just don't have the patient or talent to be a chef. Anyway, i read several recipes and decided to do my best to follow this one.

Well, I tried ...and failed. Cooking any kind of doughy product requires way more patience than I have: step, wait, step, wait, step, wait. Sure, different places have different wait times, so follow which ever recipe works best for you. Actually, the big problem was I messed up the recipe somewhere and wound up with super sticky dough. Maybe it was that half cup of dark brown sugar that I shouldn't have added...2 tablespoons, half cup, same thing right? That's what I get for reading 5 recipes at the same time.

Actually, they kinda taste like bagels or something, or maybe that bread you get at Longhorn. I should have made them way thinner, but the stickiness was really frustrating me. Like I said, I want to cook, but that doesn't mean I can. I had sprinkled 2 of them with sugar and they taste the best (I already ate them both). Had i dipped the pretzels in some kind of sugary mix instead of water with baking soda, I think they would have made a good breakfast snack. Live and learn I guess.

**Whoa, whacky idea just hit me. What if you took the pretzel dough and put it in a cupcake tray? Could you make pretzel bowls for your ice cream? How cool would that be?!? Do they make oversized cupcake trays, or some kind of mini loaf maybe? I miss pretzel cones.

Back to my blogging resolution. There are two problems for any website. The first is getting people to your site, the second is keeping them there. I'm a long way from mastering either, so if you want to post a comment with some ideas or suggestions, go right ahead. Are my descriptions lacking? Should I have more details like ingredients? I think more pictures always helps, the most popular blogs always look great. (I had this whole paragraph written in my head earlier and now I've totally forgotten everything). Oh well, happy new year! May 2009 be better than we all expect.