Pretzel-Crusted Chicken and Spinach Salad with Strawberry Balsamic

I saw this recipe for pretzel-crusted chicken in the Washington Post's "All We Can Eat" blog this week and had to make it... it was so good! Super crunchy, slightly salty crust. Mmm. I made the sauce a little bit differently from the recipe, mostly because I was preoccupied while cooking, but it was still good- mayo, minced dill, a hint of honey and a hint of lemon juice.
Very loosely based on this recipe, we turned a little more of our abundant strawberry harvest into some sweet (but not overly so) strawberry salad dressing. Pureed strawberries with minced shallots, a splash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper... healthy and delicious on a salad with some tangy cheese (goat cheese or feta worked for us).

Superbowl Snacks

We were basically snowed in for Superbowl due to the Snowpocalypse here in DC, but we were able to turn out these fun homemade soft pretzel bites with a cheddar cheese dipping sauce.

The pretzel bites are really good- definitely best served warm. The recipe makes a million bites- we made all the dough, but only cooked half of them. We are freezing the other dough (already shaped into the bites), so we'll see how that turns out next time we have a soft pretzel craving.

We upped the ante on the cheese sauce by sprinkling in some smoked paprika- yum. However, I should warn you not to make the cheese sauce until right at the end- it cooks very quickly and doesn't keep its consistency very well. I got a little excited and made the cheese sauce before the pretzel bites were done cooking: bad plan.