Bears Bread Sticks (Read all the way to the bottom)

I haven't done much posting lately about the main topic of this blog which believe it or not is cooking.   The funny thing is that we eat dinner at home just about every night and I did a whole lotta cooking while we had our house guest the past 5 weeks.  One would think with all that cooking I could have found something no matter how small to tell you that you simply must try.  There is nothing on here that we do not eat ourselves and you never ever ever hear about the misses, the food that doesn't quite turn out the way it is planned.   We all have them, those meals that we have such great hopes for and than BAM, time to order pizza!

While he was here, Spencer and I spent time together in the kitchen.  He likes to cook, doesn't like to clean up but hey neither do I (which is why the deal the hubby and I made while still dating works great, if you cook you don't do the dishes after the meal).  One of the thing we made twice during his visit was bread sticks, we found this great recipe on line for Almost Famous Bread sticks.  After a bit of tweaking for what we had in the house this is our version which we will call Not Really Almost Famous Bread sticks!

Not Really Almost Famous Bread sticks

1 package yeast
4 1/4 cups all purpose flour, plus more for dusting
2 tablespoons soft butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt

3 tablespoon melted butter
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (I used more)
2 cloves garlic minced

Put 1/4 cup warm water into a bowl and sprinkle the yeast over it.  Set aside until the yeast blossoms.  Add the flour, butter, sugar, salt and 1 1/4 cups warm water.  Mix until a slightly sticky dough forms and it pulls away from the side of the bowl.  (I add about 3 cups of flour and than mix, if the dough is not right I continue to add flour).  Depending on your flour and the humidity you may use more or less flour, do not panic!!

Knead the dough on a floured surface for about 3 minutes.  It should be smooth and soft as a babies bottom.  Roll into a 2 foot long log than cut into 16 pieces.  Knead each one and than shape into about 6" long logs.  Put on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, cover with a kitchen towel and allow to sit about 45 minutes or until doubled in size

With the oven heated to 400 degrees, brush the bread sticks with 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of melted butter than sprinkle with the salt.  Place in the oven for about 15 minutes or until the bread sticks are a light golden brown, remove from the oven and let sit for a few minutes so you don't burn your fingers than move  them to a cooling rack.  Mix the remaining 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of melted butter with the minced garlic.  Brush the bread sticks with the butter and garlic mixture and enjoy!

One final bit of advice...Keep the bread sticks where the dog cannot get them.  No matter how well behaved you may think your dog is, and you know I think mine is a saint, they can and will steal a bread stick, hide it in the side of their mouth away from you and steal off into the backyard with said bread stick.  Not that Bear would ever think of doing that (except yesterday when he did do that!).