Savory Sunday-Rosemary Pretzels

Happy Oscar Night! Hope you all enjoyed the theatrics of the show. I'm so glad that Argo won Best Picture and Jennifer Lawrence won Best Actress. Both were well deserved! In preparation for our awards-watching, I made this delicious recipe. I saw somewhere this past week that someone was doing a "PJs and Pearls"Oscar watching party. This was our PJs and Pretzels party.

Rosemary Pretzels with Rosemary Cheddar Cheese Sauce

Ingredients:

For the pretzels:
1 1/2 c. warm water
2 tbsp. light brown sugar
2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
6 tbsp. butter, melted
2 1/2 tsp. sea salt
4 1/2 to 5 c. flour
2 tbsp. fresh rosemary, chopped
Canola oil
2/3 c. baking soda
1 whole egg, beaten with 1 tbsp. cold water
coarse sea salt

For the cheese sauce:
2 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. flour
1 c. milk
1 c. cheddar cheese, shredded
2 tsp. fresh rosemary, chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste

Combine the water, sugar, yeast and butter in a stand mixer using a dough hook. Let sit for 5 minutes.

Add salt, flour, and rosemary and mix on a low speed until combined. Increase the speed to medium and continue kneading until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, about 3 to 4 minutes. If the dough seems too wet, add additional flour, little by little. Remove the dough from the bowl. On a flat surface, knead the dough with your hands into a ball.

Coat a large bowl with canola oil, add the dough and turn to coat with oil. Cover the bowl with a clean towel or plastic wrap and place in a warm spot until the dough doubles in size, about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Boil a large pot of water.

Remove the dough from the bowl and place on a flat surface. Cut the dough into 8 equal-size pieces. Roll each piece into a long rope. Form it into an upside-down "U", twist, and press the ends of dough into the rounded part of the pretzel.

Slowly add the baking soda to the boiling pot of water (very slowly! It boils up!). Drop 2 pretzels at a time into the water for 30 seconds, splashing water on the tops of the pretzels. Remove the pretzels with a slotted spoon and place on greased cookie sheet. Place only 4 pretzels on a baking sheet at a time. Brush the tops of the pretzels with the egg wash and season with coarse sea salt.

Bake for 15-18 minutes until the pretzels are golden brown. Remove pretzels from the oven and cool on a wire baking rack.

While the pretzels are cooling, you can make the cheese sauce. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Then whisk in flour. Pour the milk in and whisk until the mixture thickens. Stir in shredded cheese until it's melted and smooth. Stir in rosemary and salt and pepper to taste.