DIY 3 Ingredient Mint Chocolate Covered Pretzels [Gluten-Free]

Are you tempted by store bought chocolate covered pretzels? Or wheat-laden white chocolate mint Pretzel Thins? Satisfy your sweet tooth with these easy copy-cat gluten-free pretzels. You may already have all the ingredients on hand. These salty and sweet treats are easy to make for Christmas. Or just because.

Ingredients

Roughly a handful of each:

Semi-sweet chocolate chips

Gluten-free pretzels (we used Glutino brand from Meijer, but any brand will do)

Peppermint candies

If you like recipes that don't require measuring things, check out this 2 ingredient breakfast recipe.

Supplies

Nonstick pan

Spatula

Wax or parchment paper

Hammer (or rolling pin)

Directions

Melt a handful of chocolate chips in a nonstick skillet. To avoid burning the chocolate, stir regularly and heat until most of the chips have melted, but there are a few lumps left.

Remove from heat and keep stirring while the last lumps melt.

Unwrap the peppermint candies, put in a bag, and relieve your holiday stress. Smash the mints with a hammer. (You can smash the mints while they’re still individually wrapped, but  it’s harder to unwrap smashed mints.)

Lay out some wax paper or parchment paper.

Stir the pretzels into the chocolate to coat, then lay the coated pretzels on the paper.

Sprinkle with crushed mints.

Try to wait till the chocolate is hardened to eat the pretzels.

Who am I kidding, eat several while they are melty and warm!

After cooling and hardening, store in a cookie tin by lifting the paper, pretzels and all, and placing in a tin. Or you can store in a plastic bag.

Tips

Don’t make a big batch. You’ll be tempted to eat them all.

After a few days, the pretzels can get soft.

Want more chocolate recipes? Check out this flourless chocolate cake recipe, which can also be minty.

Merry Christmas!

5 Gluten Free Quarantine Baking Recipes I Love

During my state's "stay at home" time (which is now being phased out) I have been baking more.

 

Rather than a giving detailed recipes, this is a round-up of foods I've made and links to the original recipe.
Note: I eat gf to keep my belly happy. All 5 recipes are gluten free. Some of these recipes are also paleo, dairy free, nut free or refined sugar free. That's just an added bonus.

Bamboozled by Jackfruit

Before all this social distancing, I went out to a restaurant with a friend.  She was my boss at the bakery where I used to work, and we hadn't seen each other since I left the bakery to focus on my last semester in school.

The restaurant was one of those fancy, local, organic Mexican restaurants, with many of the taco names in Spanish. We both got the pick three tacos option, and blue corn tortillas. I got two meat tacos, and one vegan taco with jackfruit on it. I've never eaten jackfruit in my life. I usually have sour cream and cheese on my tacos, but none of the ones I picked had either.

The Al Pastor One
Pork shoulder marinated in pureed onion and Guajillo Pepper with grilled pineapple, onions and cilantro. (I got this one for the pineapple. It was my favorite - slightly spicy, but not too much.)
According to the Pioneer Woman, "Al Pastor" means "shepherd style." This pork taco takes inspiration from Lebanese immigrants to central Mexico. Read more here

The Mole One
Puebla Pollo (chicken) with radishes, sesame seeds, and cilantro. Contains nuts. (This wasn't spicy. It was kinda bland, and my least favorite. My friend thought "mole" might mean it had chocolate, but it didn't taste like it.)

The Jackfruit One
Sauteed BBQ jackfruit with mango salsa, chipotle date yogurt and cilantro. (This was super spicy. I avoided all the tacos on the menu with a flame icon next to it, but this was the hottest of the three I tried. Keep in mind I'm not used to spicy food. I think it's the chipotle that brings the heat. Speaking of Chipotle, I usually get chicken there because it's the least spicy, and skip the salsa.)

When my order arrived,  I could not tell which order was which. I was wishing I had photographed the menu, because after reading all the descriptions, they ran together in my brain. Lets see there's the pineapple meat one, the mole one and uh... they all look and taste like they have meat on them. That's odd. If one has mango and another has pineapple, wheres the jackfruit? I was expecting something sweet.

Later, I looked up jackfruit and turns out it has stringy flesh that vegans love to barbecue as a meat replacement. I could not tell the difference! Note that jackfruit has less protein than meat.

(If you couldn't tell yet, I listed the taco descriptions first to last in the order they are in the photo left to right.)

My friend got the the Carne Asada One: roast (grilled marinated flank steak, onion, cilantro, and cotija cheese [cow's milk hard cheese]), the Cauliflower One (veggie: roasted blackened cauliflower topped with avocado slices + red cabbage + guacamole salsa), and the Tinga One (spicy chipotle, crema and micro greens)


Local friends: Vivir Modern Mexican has reopened with limited hours and menu due to COVID-19 according to their Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/eatvivir/ May 15 2020.